A handful of missed opportunities and a couple of players going into the sin-bin ultimately cost them, and they will be looking to put that right this coming weekend against Vale of Lune.

The Wids were good value for the lead they held at half time, and then midway through the second half. And even when they fell behind, they were good enough to recover and reclaim the advantage only to see the initiative snatched from their grasp in the final few minutes.

For Park, they will simply have been delighted with their second held recovery and get themselves over the finishing line.

The weather for the game was pleasant enough, but there was a strong wind blowing straight down the pitch.

There was an early exchange of kicks out of hand in the opening stages, but it was Park who struck first after just four minutes, as they cut loose from midfield to release Sean Lynch who scored a try.

Widnes responded as McGovern’s long pass found Josh Salter who released the elusive Sam Fitzsimon, only for the final pass to be deemed forward.

The visitors then bombed a glorious opportunity to score as the final pass went to ground with the line wide open.

Finally, though, after fifteen minutes, the ‘red-and-blacks’ were able to open their account as Liam McGovern converted a penalty.

Widnes were now growing into this contest, and another couple of exciting runs from Dan Rourke and Charlie Feeley was followed by a try from Tom O’Neill who crashed over from close range.

Liam McGovern then added the extras to extend the visitors advantage to seven points.

Several errors now began to creep into the Widnes game, and from one such mistake allowed wing man Sam Chidley to get on the outside and race home for the equalising score. To make matters worse, the visitors then lost a player into the sin-bin.

Fortunately, a super 50:20 relieved the pressure that was building inside the Widnes danger zone, and from there the visitors should have scored again. Instead, though, they had to settle for the second of two penalties going over from the boot of McGovern, which gave the visitors a narrow three-point advantage at the break.

Returning to a full complement of players just after the start of the second half appeared to give Widnes a lift, and after Tom O’Neill had made a strong run, the ball was released out wide for wing man Lewis George to score. With the conversion also going over, the red-and-blacks lead had increased to 20pts – 10.

A glaring error in the Wids defence that almost led to an immediate try response from Park, was then followed by a bout of fisticuffs that earned both captains a telling off.

On the hour mark, Widnes then had another player sent to the ‘bin, and Park needed no second invitation to add a converted try which reduced the deficit to just three points once again.

Scrum half Gavin Hatton then limped off for the Wids, and just a few minutes later, Park grabbed another converted score to put them back into the lead.

In a frantic last ten minutes, Widnes wrestled back the initiative as Tom O’Neill barged his way over the line for a try which was goaled by McGovern, before Park responded once more with a converted try of their own to make it 31 – 27.

Even then, there was still enough time for the Wids to give it one more go. But, despite a whole pile of pressure close to the Park line, they were unable to cross the whitewash for what would have been a match clinching score.

Head coach Liam McGovern said afterwards “Today was a tough one to take with the amount of points we left on the field. We had spoken all pre-season about being ruthless in taking our chances of scoring points which we did not do today.

We need to learn and learn fast that you simply cannot play that naively when playing league rugby.

Birkenhead Park are always tough to beat away, but we showed just how dangerous we can be ball in hand causing them all sorts of problems all over the pitch. The two-sin binning’s meant it was tough at times, but the lads showed their fitness and dug in and fought well over these periods.
Overall assessment was that it was a good, committed performance with some particularly good patches of play, and hopefully it is a good learning curve for everyone into how to see games out away from home in this league.”

Widnes: J Salter, S Fitzsimon, L Lawton, K Leadbetter, L George, L McGovern, G Hatton, D Rourke, B Mercer, K Riley, S Bryan, M Garrity, C Feeley, W Patient, T O’Neill (c). Reps: M Lawton, R Hamlett, T Spencer