By STEVE MASCORD
LONDON did everything wrong but lose the 1985 Cup final.
Jason Demetriou’s men ran out 32-10 winners over Widnes at Halliwell Jones Stadium to lift their second piece of silverware under their new owners.
The win was sealed with second rower Luke Smith’s try off a Connor O’Beirne grubber in the 56th minute and fullback Alex Walker’s follow-up from a Dean Hawkins banana kick seven minutes later after a double gaffe at the back.
Man of the match Dean Hawkins scored 12 of their 32 points – he kicked the final conversion out of his hands. making it void – from a try and four goals. Winger Neil Tchamambe and centre Robert Mathias scored late tries to make the scoreline deceptively
But the the Broncos could scarcely have made harder work of it in front of a vociferously pro-Widnes crowd.
London played the first half as if they were intent on getting as much tackling practice as possible.
Time after time the lost the ball at dummy half, dropped Widnes kicks and conceded yardage penalties to present the Vikings with scoring opportunities.
The tone was set in the first minute when Elliot Wallis took Nathan Connell high.
Nevetheless, after four minutes the Broncos received an off-side penalty in easy kicking distance and opted to run it, immediately rewarded with a try to winger Neil Tchamambe which halfback Dean Hawkins converted.
But the rot set in, more or less from the rest of the half, when Tchamambe dropped the kick-off. London had a four point lead at halftime but never really shrugged off their extreme clunkiness.
Widnes enjoyed four consecutive sets hammering the London line at this point, with Tchamambe ending the period with a ball-and-all tackle.
But then the winger fumbled again and Widnes finally got their try, second rower Danny Langtree crashing over in the 19th minute, Danny Richardson converting.
Having worked so hard for their first try, Alan Coleman’s men weren’t to enjoy its benefits for too long.
Nick Gregson lost the ball shortly after the kick-off and London hooker Finley Glare dummied to the open side and sent the ball to the blind, where Hawkins stepped inside the defence that was rushing across to to compensate.
Hawkins added he extras for 12-6 and London finished the half with a couple of balls dropped at dummy half and a couple blatant high tackles, one of which allowd Danny Richardson to narrow the margin to four.
LONDON 32 (Tchamambe 2 Hawkins Smith Walker Mathias tries Hawkins 4 goals) beat WIDNES 10 (Langtree try Richardson 3 goal) at Halliwell Jones Stadium. Crowd: 4829
Teams:
LONDON: Alex Walker; Neil Tchamambe, Brandon Webster-Mansfield, Robert Mathias, Elliot Wallis; Gairo Voro, Dean Hawkins; Reagan Campbell-Gillard (c), Finley Glare, Epel Kapinias, Luke Smith, Jack Croft, Saliva Havili. Res: Connor O’Beirne, Lewis Bienek, Emarly Bitungane, Sadiq Adebiyi.
WIDNES: Nathan Connell; Ryan Ince, Jack Owens, Max Roberts, Mike Butt; Danny Richardson, Tim Gilmore; Dan Murray, Jordan Johnstone, James Chapelhow, Sam Wilde, Danny Langtree, Nick Gregson. Res: Lewis Hall, Adam Lawton, Morgan McWhirter, Max Bandit.
Referee: Tom Grant.
