“IT was a bit of a rollercoaster!”

So said Widnes Vikings head coach Allan Coleman, after a sensational late comeback saw Andrew Henderson’s York Knights slip to a 22-18 defeat.

Despite the Knights holding a somewhat comfortable lead, a late turnaround from the visiting Widnes meant that York’s recent resurgence had hit a blip.

Coleman was delighted with the Vikings’ late efforts, going on to explain where the second-half turnaround came from.

“It was a bit of a rollercoaster!” Coleman told the Widnes media team.

“In the first-half we weren’t at our best, and the best thing about that is probably them realising that.

“You can scream and shout at players and will they listen? Probably not, but you can explain why we’re doing this.

“We were really good in how we responded, the group learned a lot at half-time about how we could be better and it’s just vital that when you ask players to do things and change things, they do that, because it just shows that they are listening to me.

“I also listen to them. In the second-half we were really good, really dominant and I am just really pleased.

“They’re brilliant, there’s no soft culture at this club.

“There’s a fighting mentality, a happiness and an enjoyment. The words soft culture has been mentioned a bit lately and we’ve certainly not got that.

“I’m proud of every single one of them. They wanted to win so much, they wanted to change after that first-half and they did.

“Teams around us are losing. We know that we’re going to lose games but we won’t lose because of a lack of effort or fight.”

Coleman would go on to explain what his Widnes side changed to stage the comeback, placing praise onto Kieran Dixon after showing improvements from a shaky first-half performance.

Coleman continued: "It was just getting things right, being smart with the ball, asking questions.

“If you run at people straight then they will just tackle you well and defend you well, and you won’t put any holes in them.

“We had to start playing with some shape on certain edges and we did that, our kicking game improved and we got some rewards from the kicks.

“Dicko [Dixon] didn’t have a great half and he knows that, so it was important that he realised that when he was wrong.

“His attitude was fantastic. Our last words when he came on was to go and win this game and he went on to score two late tries.

“[Rhodri] Lloyd had been itching in training to play and I thought that he deserved that. He looked really good so that was important to us.”