Friday 3 April 2015 15:45, UK
Widnes boss Denis Betts and Warrington coach Tony Smith both claimed it was "health and safety gone mad" after the Cheshire derby was held up by a flare thrown from the crowd.
Referee Robert Hicks took both sets of players from the field while stewards cleared the flare, which appeared to come from the visiting Warrington fans among the 7,768 Super League crowd at the Select Security Stadium.
"Have we gone absolutely stark raving mad that we can't just grab it and throw it in the stand back at them?" said Betts, whose Vikings side maintained their impressive home form with a 30-10 win.
"It was health and safety gone mad in one sense, in another sense, you can't do those kind of things.
"But are we trying to prove a point to the fans or do we take the smart option and just get it off the field?"
Smith said: "Some of the health and safety issues were a bit over the top I think. I would have liked a bucket of water and maybe a glove and gone and picked it up myself just to get on with the game."
Widnes, fresh from a hammering at Salford, had just conceded the game's first try to Ben Westwood when the stoppage came but they then produced a tremendous defensive effort and stormed into a 26-6 lead with winger Stefan Marsh scoring a brace of first-half tries.
"Defensively we were outstanding," Betts said. "It was something we talked about after the Salford game.
"I thought across the board everybody's energy was that little bit better.
"We knew we had it in us to score points but I wanted us to show we can defend and defend with resilience. They scored a try off a kick and another when we were down to 12 men so I'm really happy with the way we defended.
"If we can defend like that, anything is possible. This is a really solid rugby league side."
Warrington were still in contention at half-time when they trailed 14-6 but their opponents took full advantage of the sin-binning of Westwood on 50 minutes, with Kevin Brown scoring the decisive try.
It was a third consecutive defeat on the artificial turf of the Select Security Stadium for the Wolves, whose three-match losing run is their worst since 2009.
"We've had some difficult times here," Smith said. "I've seen worse scorelines and I've seen lesser efforts in the past. We tried hard and in the first half there was not much between the teams.
"They took a couple of opportunities better than us and I thought it was going to be real good game in the second half but six penalties in eight minutes and a sin bin, it's hard to recover from that, it really hurt us.
"Didn't Kevin Brown come alive during that period of time? He ran the show, I thought he was fantastic. They took a chance to bring him back I think and it paid off for them.
Warrington lost winger Matty Russell with an ankle injury and Smith will also check on hooker Daryl Clark's facial injury ahead of Monday's home game against Castleford.
