Widnes Wild faced a tough challenge over the weekend facing two of the top four teams away from home.
They came away with a win and a loss from the encounters which has propelled them into third in the table.
With only a handful of games remaining now the race is on to claim the title and teams are looking towards the play-offs.
Coaches View
It does seem fairly cut and dry now though that the Wild won’t finish above second in their debut season in Division One.
Widnes Player/Coach Richard Haggar spoke about this, saying: “Third in our first season is going to be our main aim now going forward, so we’re going to do everything we possibly can to try and achieve that and make sure we pick up the results we need to get to third by the end of the season.”
With top spot Solway Sharks sat on 41 points and second placed Whitley now on 36 points, 13 above Widnes in third it seems the race is over in that regard.
Quadruple Over Solihull?
Haggar’s side next face Solihull Barons for the final time this season, they haven’t lost to the Birmingham based team so far in the league.
The two sides also faced each other over the weekend with Widnes coming out 6-2 victors.
Haggar has said of facing the side for the final time: “Obviously we’d love to stay undefeated against Solihull they’re a very good team though, so we’ve got to make sure that we are prepared, that we’re ready and we turn up on Sunday to try and get the result that we want to help us finish in that third place.”
Strong Framework in Place
Integral to their success has been Latvian Vlads Vulkanov who is the league’s current top scorer (26).
Haggar himself is up there in the statistics being the second highest for assists in the league (30).
Alongside players like Liam Charnock and goalie Harrison Walker the side has a strong framework in place for next season.
Charnock scored twice against the Baron’s the last time they played, with Haggar and Vulkanov adding one each to their tallies as well.
Vlads was one of two goal scorers when the Wild faced Whitley Warriors on Sunday with Danny Haid grabbing the other.
Looking onto next season the club will be counting on these players to push for more titles and a higher finish in the table.
Haggar said of this: “I think we’ve got a very good foundation this year, especially the team we’ve got. We’ve got Vlads scoring the goals, we’re picking up points and we’ve got obviously the likes of Charns (Charnock) and Harrison (Walker) people that, we’ve brought in. We want to try and put the pieces together to be able to push on for them top two places and challenge them a bit more next year, but the main aim for this season is to finish strongly and keep doing what we’re doing.”
With the play-off weekend looming at the end of April a higher finish will stand Widnes in good stead.
If everything was to remain as it was now in the table Widnes (3rd) would face Billingham Stars (6th).
Keeping that third place spot could be the difference for the club coming into this crucial period of their season.
