Qualifiers is one big banana skin, claims Betts

Widnes coach Denis Betts thinks that the Qualifers have shown that Super League sides can take nothing for granted when it comes to preserving their top-tier status.

Betts thinks that any of the seven games a team faces can be potential landmines, even when they look to be as comfortable as the Vikings’ weekend win over Bradford.

“You’ve got to be at your best every single week,” he said.

“Understanding this competition at this stage has been the toughest ask for the Super League sides, because it’s an unknown.

“You’re playing against sides that you haven’t seen that much of all year, and they’ve got nothing to lose. You have.

“It’s a real tough competition, so every single week is a banana skin.”

The Vikings travel to West Yorkshire this weekend for their final away game of the Qualifiers, where they will face Brian Smith’s Wakefield Wildcats.

Wakefield have changed a lot in terms of personnel and structures since Smith took over as coach.

Betts, although anticipating differences in Trinity’s approach, feels that he has a greater knowledge of what to expect from a full-time, rather than part-time, team.

“They’re massively different,” he said.

“They’ve got a different coach, different players, a different mindset.

“They’ve been building. They finished bottom of the table, and with four or five weeks to go in the Super League competition they were looking at making changes and putting people in place to retain their Super League status.

“They’ve been on a crusade for this stage of the competition a lot longer than most of the sides in this competition have.

“It probably suits us a better playing a Super League side, we know what to expect as we’ve played them twice this year.

“They’re different concepts, but we can see things that a full-time side works on.”