WIDNES brought the curtain down on their home season with a 36-28 win over Swinton Lions, playing some fine rugby league in the process.

It was all Widnes in the opening stages but they couldn’t find the killer pass to open up the Swinton defence.

The Lions enjoyed their own spell of pressure and came close to a try but dangerous fullback Matty Ashton was stopped in the right corner.

The first score of the game eventually came the Vikings’ way on 20 minutes when smart passing from right to left saw Jack Owens join the line and his pass sent Keanan Brand over wide out to make it 4-0.

Just three minutes later Widnes were in again when a long Danny Craven pass was knocked down by a Swinton player before being scooped up by Patrick Ah Van who muscled his way over at the left corner. Owens was again wide with the difficult conversion attempt.

It looked like the Vikings may be on a roll but the Lions had other ideas.

A mis-read in defence enabled left winger Mike Butt to dive over in the corner to pull four points back and on 35 minutes the visitors hit the front when giant substitute prop Samy Kabula exchanged passes with Ashton to cross just to the right of the posts with Jack Hansen adding the extras making it 10-8 at the interval.

Widnes got off to a good start to the second half when Anthony Gelling’s back pass out of the tackle sent Lloyd Roby away up the right touchline where he used his inside support as a foil to trick his way past Ashton and restore the lead for his team at 12-10.

On 48 minutes, some last tackle improvisation in the opposition ‘20’ finished with Brand grubbering to the corner where Ah Van picked up the bouncing ball and crossed for his second try with Owens’ conversion making it 18-10.

Owens increased the lead to 24-10 when he sold a dummy and coasted to the line from 10 metres out for a self-converted try.

Once again Swinton refused to lie down and they hit back when stand-off Hansen charged down a Craven kick and raced 75 metres to the posts to pull six points back on 56 minutes.

The most popular try of the afternoon came with 13 minutes remaining when Chris Dean, in his last home game before retirement, crashed over from a Joe Lyons short ball with Owens’ goal giving the Vikings a 30-16 advantage.

Dean’s incisive break saw him send Josh Ganson under the posts for a six-pointer to push the lead out by a further four points and to the delight of the crowd, Dean was given the honour of landing the conversion making it 36-16.

The Lions threw caution to the wind in the latter stages and were rewarded with converted scores from Nick Gregson and Ashton, the latter’s coming following a kick direct from a scrum on their own line.

A final scoreline of 36-28 and a thoroughly entertaining game.

Widnes: Owens; Roby, Gelling, Brand, Ah Van; Craven, Lyons; J Chapelhow, Ganson, Norman, Wilde, Dean, Robson. Subs: Dugdale, Cahill, T Chapelhow, Walker.

Swinton: Ashton; Butt, Lloyd, Mullen, Lepori; Hansen, Fairclough; Bennion, Brickhill, Hatton, Halton, Wells, Jones. Subs: Morris, Gregson, Kenga, Kabula.

Half-Time: 8-10

Referee: Mr G Dolan