WIDNES coach Steve McCormack says the club is close to announcing that it has retained ‘a number of current players’ ahead of their crucial clash with Whitehaven at the weekend.

The news that the Vikings are continuing to build for the future will be a welcome tonic to Widnes fans who have had to endure the setback of being denied Super League rugby league for the third time in recent weeks.

Skipper Mark Smith could be one of the names McCormack has retained for at least another season and he will join Dean Gaskell, Jim Gannon and Iain Morrison, who have already committed themselves to the club.

McCormack said: “We are close to unveiling which of the current playing staff we have retained for 2009. We have to keep focusing and building for the future. National League will be as strong as it’s ever been next season and we have to prepare accordingly.”

The Widnes coach hopes to add some new faces to the squad once the deadline to speak to players expires in September and clubs are allowed to officially speak to new players.

McCormack is remaining tight-lipped on who those players will be but he hinted that the club could be busy in the transfer market.

He said: “We are always on the look-out for quality players and if certain players become available and we can speak to them then we will.”

Meanwhile, McCormack takes his side to his former stomping ground at The Recreation in Whitehaven for Widnes’s face-off with Ged Stokes’s side.

Widnes’s only doubt is Matty Smith, who is having treatment on a hip injury sustained during the win at Sheffield last Thursday.