Widnes Wild 1 Sheffield Senators 3.

SUNDAY night's Widnes crowd were treated to an all action thriller but again the points went the way of the visitors.

Missing the skills of Andy Clark and the speed of Ben Brown – on duty with British Students in Italy, the Wild forwards lacked a little of their usual penetration.

This was one of the most competitive matches of the season. Since Wild won in Sheffield earlier in the season, Senators have strengthened and their new import, Sergevs Jegorovs was a big influence on the game.

He opened the scoring for Sheffield in the 18th minute, assisted by outstanding forward Nathan Parkes-Britton. Before that the first period had been an attacking seesaw, with both sides foiled by some excellent netminding..

The second period was only just over a minute old when hardworking stand in captain, Chris Preston, found overseas star Filip Supa who fired home the equaliser. Sheffield regained the lead in the 31st minute when Parkes-Britton found the net from a Jegerovs pass.

The third period followed a similar pattern with action at both ends. Mark Hartley, in the Sheffield net pulled off a series of remarkable stops to prevent an equaliser.

Sheffield had gone further ahead in the 44th minute with an unassisted goal from Andrew Chapman.

This only spurred the Wild to greater efforts with coach Mark Gillingham calling a time out to make a final thrust on the Senators net.

Shots on goal finished 48–47 in favour of the visitors - a measure of the highly competitive nature of the game. New signing from Manchester Tom Revesz, took the MVP for Widnes for a superb show.

Wild have a three week break before the game in Blackburn on Saturday 11 January and a return with Sheffield in Widnes, the following night.