Steve Akrigg admitted that his side didn't deserve to come away from Saturday's game against Charnock Richard with anything, as Widnes delivered a below-par performance as they succumbed to a 3-0 home defeat.

Widnes went into Saturday's fixture knowing that a win would move them level on points with their high-flying opponents, but slumped to a frustrating and disappointing defeat.

Carl Grimshaw opened the scoring in the first half, before a Nathan Fairhurst penalty and a Jonathan Hession goal secured a comfortable victory for Charnock.

"To be honest, it was absolutely dreadful," Akrigg said.

"I think we gifted them every single goal. There was one, if not two mistakes in the build-up to each of them.

"The first goal, we let them in behind far too easily, and in the second phase, Grimshaw gets the shot away and scores. There's a poor header in the build-up to the second goal, and then we concede a penalty that we should have never given away because we were in control of the situation.

"Anyone can see how inconsistent we've been. We played so well on Wednesday, beating the unbeaten league leaders before rolling over here today.

"I have to give them credit, because they deserved the three points today. I wouldn't say we deserved anything and it possibly could have been more.

"I said the other week about resorting to playing to the other team's strengths when Plan A doesn't work. We knew beforehand that if we got into a physical battle with Charnock, we wouldn't be able to match them but that's what we did.

"Mistakes cost you games. At 0-1, Ben (Hodkinson) has to score but we didn't take our chance. They capitalised on that and went down the other end to extend their lead.

"Every week, we seem to concede from our own mistakes which is obviously going to cost us."

Next up for Widnes is a break from league action, as First Division side Carlisle City visit in the second round of the Macron Cup.

Akrigg believes that his side are capable of winning the competition, and is expecting a response from his players.

He said: "There'll definitely be some rotation on Monday. It's a competition that I'd like to go far in, if not win. I'd like to think that we're capable of giving it a good go.

"We've got a report on them, so we'll have a look and plan for Monday's game."