KEIGHLEY Cougars maintained their recent unbeaten run with a 36-16 victory over Coventry Bears in glorious sunshine in the East Midlands.

However, the Cougars were made to work for their ten point half-time lead in front of a healthy 1,097 crowd for the non-heartland side, a resilient Bears outfit determined to rise to the occasion and give their visitors a real fright.

And with the game being played at Coventry City’s Ricoh Arena as a part of the ‘City of Rugby’ initiative, Paul March’s side did just enough to return home with the League One points.

After an end-to-end opening ten minutes, Adam Brook opened the scoring when he faked a step to open up the space and allow him to fight through to touch down.

Keighley increased their lead to eight points when on the back of a penalty, Paul White’s fantastic offload sent Vinny Finigan over in the corner for a try on his 100th career appearance.

However, the Bears certainly weren’t going down without a fight and nine minutes from the interval finally got over when James Geurtjens showed great power to hand off two defenders to crash over.

The final say of the half would be the Cougars though, when Aaron Ollett’s delayed pass drew out a Bears tackler to free up the room for Charlie Martin to race around next to the sticks.

The visitors extended their lead further in the second half's early stages when Liam Darville sent Ross Peltier racing over from five metres out.

The Bears reply was immediate and they reduced the margin when Grant Beecham did enough to squeeze over in the corner.

Then, after forcing both a dropout and then a sloppy penalty from the restart, Liam Thompson ran over Josh Lynam to get his outstretched arm over to get the Bears within one try.

The pressure was beginning to show when Darville and Joel James traded blows, resulting in both players afternoon’s ending in the sin-bin.

The resulting penalty went in the Cougars favour, and Peltier broke through the bears line and managed to get a pass away to Ash Lindsay who crashed over from close range.

And the game was put to bed five minutes from time when a cross-field passing move created space for Brendon Rawlins to break and race 40 metres before offloading to Paul White to get the score, with Barnes rounding it up on the hooter.