Denis Betts admits his side face a daunting trip to Hull tonight, but insists they cannot keep making excuses after a poor start to the season.
The Vikings have picked up just one point from their opening four games of the season, leaving them cut adrift from the top eight early in the season.
Their next challenge comes in the shape of Lee Radford’s Hull FC side, who are looking for a third consecutive victory after triumphs over Huddersfield and St Helens.
Ahead of the game, Betts has warned his side that a failure to pick up points soon will leave them fighting an uphill battle for the remainder of the season.
“It’s really early days but it’s week in, week out and you’ve got to find ways of getting points on the board,” he said.
“In one way, sides are beating each other so nobody is getting away and we’re only a few wins off getting ourselves back in the mix, but we’ve got to get those wins.
“We know as a group we’ve got to dig deep and find a way of really showing our real resilience and find some form individually. I think if you look at the team I don’t think individually we’ve got anybody who is playing particularly well. Across our spine nobody is standing out. if you’ve got two or three of those players it can change a game.”
One of Widnes’ biggest issues has been their attack, having scored just 56 points in their opening four games.
To overcome their offensive woe, Betts believes his side must show more ‘guile’.
“The people you want to beat defenders aren’t beating defenders,” he said.
“We’re not going through the motions because we looked OK at times, but we’re not engaging enough and not willing to push ourselves into a place where we get that bite and creativity. We’ve got players missing but they’re not going to drastically change us.
“We just need a little bit more guile. We’ve got back-rowers who can hit a line and break a tackle, we’ve got halves that can engage and are hard to tackle and a fullback who are in the top five or six people for beating people.
“We just don’t seem to have that at the minute.”