Widnes Vikings 64 Wigan St Judes 12

WIDNES Vikings cruised into round four of the Carnegie Challenge Cup comfortably enough with a 64-12 win over Wigan St Judes at Stobart Stadium Halton.

But it's a scoreline which doesn't reflect the contribution made to the contest by the amateur side.

They even took the lead with a seventh minute try by Lee Maiden, goaled by Dave Picton, to give Widnes an early fright.

Of course, there was never any real possibilty of an upset but Paul Cullen's men will know they've been in a game.

Vikings hit back with tries from Dave Allen and Anthony Thackeray to establish a lead they would never relinquish.

Lee Doran showed good pace to race in from 50 metres and further pressure brought tries from Scott Yates and Dave Houghton to make it 26-6 at the break.

When Shane Grady found a huge hole to score in the first minute of the second half, one sensed it was going to be a damage limitation exercise for the visitors but they again showed their fighting spirit to score a fine breakaway try from centre Darley King.

That effort was superbly goaled by Picton but it was as good as it got for St Judes.

Richard Varkulis and substitute Danny Hulme shared four tries in a 13-minute spell to put Widnes out of sight.

Allen became the third Widnes player to register a brace and with four minutes remaining scrum half Thomas Coyle completed the scoring with another six-pointer.

Grady finished with eight goals to his credit and the Vikings can now look forward to the visit of French side Lezignan in the next round.

Widnes: Yates (1t); Flynn, Thompson, Grady (1t, 8g), Gardner; Thackeray (1t), Coyle (1t); Haggert, Smith, Doran (1t), Varkulis (2t), Strong, Allen (2t). Subs: Kavanagh, Gerrard, Hulme (2t), Houghton (1t).