Cullen's Widnes have fallen to defeat in their last five league games

Widnes coach Paul Cullen blamed his side's poor kicking for Sunday's 30-22 defeat by Featherstone.

Vikings have done well in the Northern Rail Cup this term but have struggled in the league as they sit seventh.

Cullen told BBC Radio Merseyside: "I'm disappointed with the quality of our kicking game, we're very inconsistent.

"The players have run themselves inside out and completely squandered about 30 or 40% of the energy because the kicking game wasn't good enough."

He added: "I thought our competition rate was outstanding in these conditions. I thought our effort to play real good rugby league was there for all to see, we came up with some great plays and scored some great tries."

Widnes now face Whitehaven in the Championship on Thursday, four days after their defeat by the top side in the division, as they battle through a tough sequence of fixtures.

The former Warrington coach says his side can change their own fortunes if they improve their level of performance every week.

"The turnaround is of no concern for me," Cullen continued. "It's our players consistently performing to the correct level every single week.

"We've got too many one in three players. It's one good game and then they drop off for a couple games.

"You've got to do an awful lot of work to try and fix it back up and that's an issue for us."

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