THE curtain has come down on a landmark season for Widnes Vikings – with defeat at Warrington ending their interest in this year’s maiden play-off campaign.

Although Vikings will kick themselves for letting an 18-point slip away, the bold manner in which they attacked the business end of the season augurs well for the future.

It has been a season of great strides on the pitch for Denis Betts’ men - with a first play-off series, preceded by an eighth placed Super League finish and run to the Challenge Cup semi-finals.

But in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s loss, bitter disappointment at the team’s failure to hold on to what would have been a major scalp still hung heavily in the air.

Betts said: “We let them in the door just before half time with an error and then not being able to defend that error gave them a lift at half time and they consolidated and played really well in the second half.

“For the Challenge Cup and when you get into these kind of games, the top end and knockout of the league, then everybody has to bring their A game and I thought at the start of the game we did. We just had a couple of players who dropped off in the second half.

“There were some uncharacteristic errors and the occasion probably just got to them. Sometimes you get ahead and you stop thinking about winning and start worrying about losing.

“That might be something we can talk about as a group. They’re massively disappointed.”

There were numerous stand out performances from the men in black and white, not least from skipper Jon Clarke, playing his last ever game.

Betts added: “Jon was instrumental in just getting us moving, his last ever game of rugby league was fantastic.

“You see him perform like that at stages you wonder why he wants to give it away.

“It was probably one of Hep Cahill’s strongest games this year. His line running breaks were fantastic.

“Kevin Brown was sensational again, and Paddy Flynn scored some good tries.

“We worked really hard for each other, the effort and the energy we put into it was outstanding. We can be pleased, but we’re still a bit unhappy as I felt we worked hard enough to get the result – it’s a tough one to take.”