Hodgson admits size of Vikings’ Hull challenge

Correspondent

Widnes assistant coach Brett Hodgson has admitted that overcoming Hull FC will require the Vikings lifting their game again, following the weekend’s home win over Huddersfield Giants.

The Vikings won the game 24-20, but Hodgson acknowledges that Hull away from home will be a tougher challenge on Friday evening.

“They’re [Hull FC] the form team in the competition, there’s no doubt about that,” he said.

“They’ve got quality all over the park.

“They’re well coached. Marc Sneyd can kick teams all around the park.

Jamie Shaul is always dangerous, whenever he gets the ball.

“You put them on the back of Frank Pritchard, Mark Minichiello, Gareth Ellis – they’ve got quality everywhere.

“And there’s no doubt they deserve to be at the top of the table.

“We’re going to make sure that we lift our standards again, from what was a pretty good performance against Huddersfield.

“We have to go up another two or three levels at least.”

Hodgson also acknolwegded that the weekend win over Huddersfiled was a tense affair at times for both players and staff, largely due to the pressure of going the eight previous games without a victory.

“We’ve probably relied on other results not going against us in the past,” he said.

“We realised, with the results going against us this weekend, that we had to pull our fingers out and get that win.

“It didn’t motivate us further to win the game, because we have been desperate to win in the past.

“But it’s at the point where we have to keep doing the little things to bring home that victory.

“We looked at that at half-time.

“We realised that our execution on the back of some good play let us down.

“It was probably the anxiety that we’ve felt in the last eight weeks without getting a result.

“Our attacking structure was good, just the last pass, or the last option, has been letting us down.

“We knew that at half-time, if we could just get those to stick a little bit more, then we had ourselves in a good position to come back.”