WIRE began their tight rope walk to glory without a safety net – four steps to ultimate success, but one slip and the dream would die.

Wire were almost completely starved of possession for the first 10 minutes. Sticking to a well thought out plan Widnes conjured up two almost identical tries from delicate kicks from Brown inside the first eight minutes.

Warrington finally had a spell with the ball, one attack was brought to an abrupt end when Bridge was almost beheaded by a challenge that belonged in an American Wrestling ring.

Widnes scored again when Hanbury escaped from an attempted tackle by Myler and jinked past Russell to stretch the lead to 18 points.

Widnes finally produced their own handling error, allowing Wire to put pressure on their line and an excellent handling move to the right created space for Bridge and he set up Joel Monaghan to score in the corner five minutes before half time.

Brown landed a drop goal, to stretch the lead back to 13 points.

At half time I still believed Wire would win, mindless optimism or considered logic, who could tell?

This time it was Widnes who were starved of possession and within 15 minutes of the restart Wire were in front.

Again, accurate passes to the right created enough space for Bridge and Monaghan to conjure up another try. Next it was a movement to the left finished off by an excellent miss pass from O'Brien sending Evans over.

Now the atmosphere was supercharged and Widnes were merely hanging on. Currie produced an offload despite three Widnes players on him, then Bridge produced a magic bit of footwork to race clear towards the full back, a simple pass to Monaghan was enough to put Wire in front by three points.

From there it could have been plain sailing, but the Wire don't do plain sailing, they do white water rafting.

Keeping us guessing until the final few seconds, the last 25 minutes produced no more points but plenty of drama and excitement.

The injuries are stacking up – Matty Russell the latest to be stretchered off – the mistakes keep coming offloads got them into a mess, but one won them the game and they'll have to win at Castleford and probably Wigan just to get to Old Trafford.

If you wanted an easy ride, you're supporting the wrong team.