In front of a healthy crowd of 445, Van Wyk found the net twice inside four first half minutes as Michael Ellison's side recorded a convincing win over one of the division's pre-season promotion favourites.

It was a complete performance from the Whites who were comfortable throughout with goalkeeper Cameron Terry enjoying a relatively quiet evening under the DCBL Stadium floodlights.

Ellison sprung a surprise with his team selection by setting up with a 3-4-1-2 formation as he made three changes to the side narrowly beaten at Leek Town on the opening day.

Will Jones, Kris Holt and James Steele dropped to the bench with Louis Isherwood, Laurence Smith and Eddie Servuts all earning recalls.

The tactical switch played perfectly into Widnes' hands with Bootle's 3-4-3 routinely coming unstuck in attack.

But as commanding as a showing it was from the Whites, they almost found themselves behind after four minutes.

Andy Scarisbrick's hopeful ball forward wasn't cleared by Jack Byrne which allowed Ben Hodkinson to burst forward into space.

The former Widnes player had bags of time but could only strike straight at the body of goalkeeper Terry who raced from his goal to close down the angle.

That was ultimately as close as Bootle would come.

Widnes survived their early scare but quickly asserted control. Sean Miller hit a slicing volley narrowly over while the excellent Steven Irwin drove an effort wide of the target.

Van Wyk opened the scoring after 21 minutes.

Byrne won possession back on the halfway line and Miller quickly fizzed a pass into the left channel where Van Wyk had James Cooper isolated.

The Widnes forward cut inside before quickly shifting back on to this left foot, turning Cooper inside out as he slotted home beyond goalkeeper Owen Mooney.

It was 2-0 four minutes later.

After Bootle skipper Adam Buxton was penalised for handball inside the D, Mooney could only parry Smith's free-kick and Van Wyk reacted quickest to slide in ahead of everyone to prod home from six yards out.

He had the ball in the net for a third time on the half-hour mark but Jay Roberts was flagged offside in the build-up.

Bootle boss Dave McNabb had seen enough, making a triple half-time substitution with Tom Peterson, Mason Fawns and Leon Legge all introduced from the bench ahead of the second half.

They switched to 4-3-3 and while the tactical switch allowed Bootle to gain inroads and find more territory, they failed to test Terry and couldn't break down a robust Widnes backline.

Peterson glanced a diving header off target five minutes after the restart while Mooney had to be alert at the other end to push a Smith daisy-cutter away to safety.

Widnes responded themselves and looked to stretch Bootle off the bench with Steele's introduction in place of Servuts.

This almost paid instant dividends with Steele striking the outside of the post just moments after coming on.

Steele went close again seven minutes from time as Widnes launched a counter-attack, but the wide man blazed over under pressure from the chasing Billy Reeves.

The game petered out as a contest as Widnes recorded their first three points of the campaign.