St Helens 26-10 Widnes: Saints send Vikings bottom of Super League
By Press Association
Last Updated: 09/06/17 10:53pm
St Helens gained revenge over Widnes with a 26-10 Betfred Super League victory that leaves the Vikings rooted to the bottom of the table.
The Vikings picked up only their second win of the season the last time the two sides met in April but Saints were in no mood to slip up again and ran in five tries to run out easy winners.
The victory saw Justin Holbrook's side leapfrog rivals Wigan in the table and remain in the hunt for a top-four place.
Mark Percival, who bagged his 500th point for the club, got the Saints rolling as he crossed after 22 minutes as Regan Grace sprinted through a gap and sent the ball inside to Percival to power over.
The Grace-Percival combination linked up again five minutes later as a cut-out pass reached the electric winger Grace, who plunged over the whitewash.
One conversion from Percival gave the home team a 10-0 half-time lead but Widnes will have been kicking themselves after they squandered at least three golden opportunities to score.
The best of them came after two minutes when impressive scrum-half Rangi Chase passed to Charly Runciman but the Aussie fumbled over the line.
Widnes started the second half brightly and Matty Whitley should have scored after the Vikings cut through but Saints half-back Theo Fages pulled off a brilliant ball-and-all tackle to stop the black and whites from making the breakthrough.
Ryan Ince finally got the try Widnes were searching for on 50 minutes as Whitley delivered a neat pass which the rookie winger finished off well.
Danny Craven hooked the conversion wide but the Vikings were back in it.
But it did not take long for order to be restored and instead of Saints dragging themselves back into it, the Vikings let them off the hook as big Alex Walmsley flopped over the line from dummy-half.
Percival converted to put them two scores ahead and they were gifted a penalty from the restart as Craven booted out on the full and were back hammering the Vikings line again.
The output was Jonny Lomax causing havoc and putting Aussie centre Ryan Morgan over for a brilliant score.
Craven hit back for Widnes with a solo effort as he scooted through the heart of the Saints defence to plunder a converted try that gave Widnes a lifeline with nine minutes remaining.
However, any flicker of hope was extinguished as Fages raced in after he charged a Vikings' clearance down.
