Cullen has begun his second season in charge at Widnes

Widnes head coach Paul Cullen admits they have been hampered by a lack of decent training facilities.

The Vikings face Barrow in the Northern Rail Cup on Sunday having registered a win and a draw in their first two games of the competition.

Cullen told BBC Radio Merseyside: "The training facilities are simply insufficient. We do struggle.

"To get on a full-sized field under floodlights and practise defence has been practically non-existent."

He added: "Long-term that's an issue we will resolve but we've not had that facility in the pre-season.

"We will get better with every game we will play - I've no doubt in my mind."

Vikings won just once in four games against Barrow last season and go into this match with several key players missing.

Cullen said "We won't be at full strength, we're still missing Haggerty and Flynn and Gaskell and Varkulis and some of these young players are going to take a bit of time to bed in.

"I'm confident it's going to be a very tough game and one we'll have to improve our performance from last week to compete with them let alone beat them.

"It's a match I'm really excited about and really looking forward to."

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