SKIPPER Matt Hughes heaped praised on his Kirkby Lonsdale players' defensive qualities after their second shut-out in succession.

The Underley Park outfit kept up the pressure on league leaders Birkenhead Park with a comfortable 29-0 win over Widnes in the first game back after Christmas.

That result followed a 17-0 win over Carlisle in December.

And a delighted Hughes said the work his team put in on the training ground is paying dividends.

"Christmas can go one or two ways," he said. "You can come back with poor fitness and feeling a bit lethargic but I think it worked well for us and gave us a chance to recharge the batteries.

"We trained on both Tuesdays over Christmas and New Year and then all had a run out on the Friday before the game which did us a lot of good.

"We said to some of the lads we know some will be working or some will have family commitments but they all made the effort to come down for an hour so I was very impressed.

"We haven't conceded a point in the last two games which is something we work on a lot in training and is hugely pleasing from my point of view. Some of that is natural ability but a lot of it is practice so it's obviously working and coming off now."

Second-placed Kirkby sit six points behind Birkenhead, with a game in hand, but Hughes insists the focus is solely on a tough away trip to Warrington on Saturday.

"It is important to keep an eye on what they are doing but in this league we have to take one game at a time because as soon as you think you are getting somewhere there is a team you can come unstuck against," he said.

"Warrington have the ability to do that this weekend. We don't play Birkenhead for another few weeks so all of our concentration is on Warrington at the moment.

"We played Warrington at home early on and we beat them with a last minute penalty so we know they are a strong side who are quite physical, very fast, fit lads so it will be difficult."