AN error-strewn 80 minutes saw Whitehaven go down 44-6 at Widnes in a performance head coach Gary Charlton will want to quickly draw a line under.

Time and again throughout the whole game, Charlton’s men invited the Vikings into their danger zone with handling errors and penalties.

With a glut of possession and field-position, Widnes gained only their second Betfred Championship win of the season running in seven tries in the process.

The early exchanges set the tone for the afternoon as Haven gave away cheap ball and found themselves under constant pressure. That said, the visitors’ goalline defence was pretty solid for the most part with the Vikings struggling to find the killer pass.

However, if you allow the opposition to spend enough time at your end, you’ll eventually concede and that’s exactly what happened on 20 minutes when Widnes hooker Brad O’Neill sneaked over from dummy-half close enough to the posts to make Steve Tyrer’s conversion a formality.

Haven’s only really threatening moment of the entire first half came when a grubber kick into the Widnes in-goal caused panic in the home defence but with Chris Taylor and Jesse Joe Parker lurking, the ball was hoofed to safety by Widnes prop Matt Cook.

Haven’s frustration at the lack of possession coming their way saw them try to take some shortcuts and a penalty conceded for raking the ball out of the tackle saw Tyrer give Widnes an 8-0 lead with a penalty goal on 35 minutes.

Charlton may have settled for that at half-time in the circumstances but his team were hit by a sucker punch just before the break when a short ball sent giant second rower Adam Lawton galloping 30 metres for a six-pointer which gave the Vikings a 14-0 interval lead.

Haven really needed the first score of the second half to get back into the contest but an initial foray into enemy territory came to nought and the Vikings swept up to the other end where stand-off Danny Craven’s show-and-go was enough to take him to the line with Tyrer once more on target.

Just two minutes later, it was Craven again - this time selling a couple of outrageous dummies to race in from 40 metres to make it 26-0.

The introduction of Oscar Thomas from the bench gave Haven a bit more punch on attack and they opened their account when substitute Jake Bradley crashed onto a flat pass to bulldoze over from close range with Lachlan Walmsley adding the goal.

However, it proved to be a false dawn as unforced errors again frustrated Haven and allowed Widnes to gain the field position to score three more tries through Will Tilleke, Jack Owens and Lawton’s second. Tyrer kept up his perfect kicking record to make the final score 44-6.

Back to the drawing board for Haven.

Widnes: Owens; Cross, Spedding, Tyrer; Craven, Lyons; Cook, O’Neill, Baker, Grady, Lawton, Smith. Subs: Clough, Dwyer, Farnworth, Tilleke.

Whitehaven: McNally; Walmsley, Taylor, Mossop, Parker; Dixon, Williams; Walker, Roden, Dawson, Gillam, Cooper, Wilkinson. Subs: Bradley, Michael, Newton, Thomas.

Referee: Mr J McMullen

Attendance: 1,400