Widnes St Maries 40 Rylands Sharks 22

RYLANDS coach Matt Wilson was pleased despite his side's defeat to the current NWC Premier Division champions Widnes St Maries.

The Sharks with a Warrington Cup final around the corner took the decision to give some of their fringe first players an opportunity to impress and that they certainly did.

Sharks were level at the break with two tries from loose forward Chris Dean, the second of which coming from a break and Adam Thompson's cheeky kick through to find Dean in support.. Jack Lewis adding a conversion.

With the scores level at 10-10 at the start of the second half, Widnes St Maries stepped up a level and the lack of first team game time was apparent in a few of the Sharks players against a team that has lost only two league fixtures to date.

Maries' 24-point blitz in the opening 20 minutes of second half all but ended the game as a contest but the Sharks stayed in touch and rounded off a superb effort with the strong Luke Walker dancing his way through the defence to score, before Rob Campbell found Jack Cosgrove between the posts to complete the scoring.

Wilson said: “We were excellent for 60 minutes of the game. The attitude of our senior players was great and some of the fringe players who haven’t played much first team rugby this year really dug in.

"It was a big ask of them to come into a game against a side like this and perform but they did but for a lack of sharpness at times and fitness we could of pushed them even closer.

"We made a decision in the week after watching the other Warrington cup semi-final that we would look to rotate the team around over the next two weeks to give us chance to look at everyone and keep everyone fresh and give us the best chance of winning the Warrington Cup.

"That is what we will do, if it works that remains to be seen but we want to give ourselves the best shot at it.”

Best for Sharks were Matty Taylor, Chris Dean, Jordan Ansell and Rob Campbell.

Sharks: Jack Lewis, Pete Price, Phil Leonard, Adam Thompson, Kris Buckley, Craig Harris, Jamie Howard, Rob Campbell, Sean Boyle, Jordan Ansell, Jack Cosgrove, Matty Taylor, Chris Dean, Luke Walker, Mark McArdle, Ryan Butler, Mitch McJay