Lloyd White: Mood is positive in Widnes camp

Widnes hooker Lloyd White says the team remain upbeat ahead of their last chance saloon against Toronto.

The Vikings ended their 17-match losing streak on Sunday as they beat Halifax 26-12 to claim their first win of The Qualifiers.

The two points gave Widnes a glimmer of hope of avoiding relegation. They are currently seventh in The Qualifiers table, two points behind fifth-placed Toulouse Olympique.

Widnes need to win their final two games against Toronto Wolfpack and Hull Kingston Rovers in the hope of making the Million Pound Game, but White says the mood remains positive in the Widnes camp.

He told loverugbyleague.com: “It’s tough to be positive but it’s even tougher if you are being negative, so we need to be positive around each other and push positivity into us.

“The mood has been pretty good in camp. The results haven’t been coming but we’ve been trying to keep our heads up the best we can.

“We have been through hard times and we had to fight hard to get the win against Halifax. It wasn’t easy because Halifax put up a real good fight, but it was nice to get that win and get off the losing streak.

“That game was our last chance. We know if we can win the next few games that we might give ourselves a chance of reaching the Million Pound Game so that’s our target and we’ve won now so that gives us something to build on against Toronto.”

Next up for Widnes is a trip to Canada as they face Toronto Wolfpack on Saturday in the penultimate game of The Qualifiers.

As things currently stand, Toronto would be the Championship side to replace Widnes in the top-flight next season but White insists the team need to go into the game thinking they are going to come away with the two points.

He added: “We need to go into games believing we are going to win because if we go out there thinking that we’re already beaten then we probably are.

“It is a different challenge with the travel this week and they are playing well at the moment, but if we can take bits from that win (against Halifax) and build on that in training then we will go for the win again.

“We have got plenty of room for improvement, so we will hopefully take that into the Toronto game.”