VALIANT Widnes Vikings snatched a late draw from an incident-packed opening night of Super League.

It looked as though any hopes they had of getting anything from the game had gone when they had Patrick Ah Van was red-carded for a clumsy high tackle that knocked out Josh Charnley.

They had already got plenty to do after conceding a soft try to Joel Tomkins followed by one from Anthony Gelling.

But after Ah Van was sent off on 23 minutes Wigan looked as though they were going to take Vikings to the cleaners.

They had a lucky escape when Joe Burgess bombed a walk-in try but there was no such let off when Gelling slipped over for his second.

Vikings hung in there, remained resolute and were rewarded when Joe Mellor dashed in at the right hand corner.

Danny Tickle's superb conversion closed the gap to 10 points, but Vikings still had a mountain to climb.

But they came out up for it to give the big home crowd something to cheer with Rhys Hanbury beating Matty Bowen to the ball from Mellor’s fine kick.

Mellor had an outstanding game and really had to step it up after Vikings lost skipper Kevin Brown with the effects of whiplash from a big shot from Ryan Sutton early in the first half.

With new boy Aaron Heremaia playing out of his skin, behind a pack that was matching the Wigan six, Widnes refused to roll over.

But even then getting anything out of the game seemed a tall order, particularly after Burgess went in at the corner from Joel Tomkins pass, with Smith’s goal restoring the 10-point cushion.

Remarkably after Declan Hulme had been scragged into touch on the right, 12-man Widnes engineered an overlap on the left and a wonder ball from the classy Hanbury saw Cameron Phelps fly over.

And with two minutes to go Widnes pressed and they eventually got their reward when Chris Dean powered over by the posts.

Stef Marsh survived his Don Fox moment to calmly slot between the aitches and Vikings had pulled off a remarkable comeback to send the home fans in the 9,286 crowd home happy.