Betts: Widnes teenagers were outstanding

Widnes boss Denis Betts praised the impact of his younger players as the Vikings exited the Challenge Cup at Warrington on Sunday.

The Wolves progressed to the last eight courtesy of a 34-20 victory, but Betts couldn’t fault the effort put in by his injury-hit side.

“I’m very proud – we were pretty confident going into the game,” said Betts. “We had nothing to lose because the odds were stacked against us. We had three teenagers in that group and I thought all three of them were outstanding.

“Danny (Walker) is going to be a star but at the moment he’s playing more games than he should. We’ve got to make sure he gets to the right level. The players are feeling a bit deflated because of the effort they have put in. We’ve taken a lot out of the last couple of weeks and put a couple of markers down.

“It was a momentous effort against a side stacked full of internationals on their home ground. I’m not sure what we’ve done wrong, every time we get ourselves in a good position, we lose more players.

“Joe Mellor has pulled a quad, Aaron Heremaia has a bad knock to his jaw and we’ve lost Paddy Ah Van for the season with a snapped Achilles.

“We’re pretty depleted and we need to bring some players in on loan because we need some who can play Super League.”