Widnes almost waste Hughes' four tries

Widnes 34 Leeds 28

Not even Adam Hughes' four tries against his first professional club saved Widnes from a nail-biting finish as Leeds came back at them in the second half of a thrilling match.

This has been the week of the near impossible fightback as Widnes mimicked the way Lancashire almost frittered away a 30-point lead against Yorkshire. It made for gripping entertainment as the Widnes coach, Neil Kelly admitted: "They seemed to like to put me through it in the last 20 minutes. We don't like to win by comfortable score lines"

It looked comfortable enough at half-time with Widnes leading 30-6 and apparently on the way to a double over the Rhinos, but they were as error prone in the second half as Leeds has been in the first. Keith Senior – one of three Leeds big guns brought off the bench – scored from Stuart Spruce's fumble and Ben Walker added another from what looked a forward pass from Francis Cummins.

The crisis appeared to be over when Steve Carter sent Hughes in for his fourth try, but Willie Poching's touchdown kept Leeds too close for comfort and when Chris Percival's horrendous error, passing the ball to no one behind his own try line, gave Cummins a gift try, the alarm was ringing in deafening fashion.

Cummins was denied a potential equaliser by brushing the corner flag and it took Barry Eaton's last-minute tackle on Adrian Vowles to finally end Leeds' hopes of snatching a draw.

Such a result looked unthinkable in the first half with Widnes ripping into a Leeds side featuring three young reserves. They were tormented by Hughes, who scored from Steve McCurrie's pass and from Eaton's high kick within the first 11 minutes. Percival and Phil Cantillon both went over from dummy half against a defence suffering from Origin Series lethargy, before Hughes completed his hat-trick from Craig Weston's pass.

"We backed his ability to score tries when we brought him to the club,'' said Kelly of Hughes. "He was disappointed not to be in the Origin Series, but this was the best response he could have given."

An 80-metre solo try from one of their teenagers, Danny McGuire, was all Leeds could manage in a first half that left their coach, Daryl Powell, seething. "It was a totally unacceptable performance in the first half,'' he said. "We worked hard in the second half but I can't understand why that urgency wasn't there in the first."

Powell did not think having nine players coming back from Origin duty would be as problem, but Widnes, chasing a top-six finish, made sure it was with combative tactics in the middle of the park and the ability to move the ball wide.

Widnes: Spruce; Demetriou, Potter, Hughes, Percival; Weston, Eaton; Relf, Cantillon, Stone, Farrell, McCurrie, Frame. Substitutes used: O'Neill, Carter, Mills, Atcheson.

Leeds: B Walker; Calderwood, Carroll, C Walker, Cummins; McGuire, Burrow; McDermott, Diskin, Ward, Adamson, Poching, Vowles. Substitutes used: Sheridan, Sinfield, Senior, McDonald.

Referee: I Smith (Oldham).