Warrington 13 Widnes 43

WARRINGTON coach Darren Abram hopes his side can rediscover their form following the Christmas break after a heavy defeat to rivals Widnes on Saturday.

It was the hosts' heaviest loss of the season, against a side they beat 27-14 earlier in the campaign, as Warrington failed to deal with Widnes' slick handling and determined running.

“I could say that we were missing some key players,” said Abram. “But even so, the Widnes backs were superb and we couldn’t find an answer to them.

"We now have a break before we meet Wigton in January and hopefully we can use the rest to recover our true form.”

It was Warrington who were first on the scoreboard with a penalty as they dominated up front, ruling the set scrums, the lineouts and out muscling the opposition at the breakdown.

This dominance soon turned into points when the Warrington pack drove the opposition 20 yards in a maul, won a scrum and then kicked a second penalty through Pat Roberts.

However, when Warrington were reduced to 14 men, the Widnes backs made use of the extra space to creep ahead with a converted try.

The visitors then struck with a breakaway try to increase their lead and again on the stroke of half time to see Warrington heading in 11 points adrift.

Abram's side exploited their forward dominance early after the interval when Roberts crashed over for a converted try after six phases of strong pressure.

This brought the hosts within four points, but this was to be the end of their scoring as Widnes found a purple patch which lasted for the rest of the game.

The Widnes backs combined to engineer an excellent try, before their stand-off dummied from a lineout to feed his inside centre who skipped over.

With both tries converted and the Widnes backs full of confidence they created two more tries to complete the rout.