Keighley Cougars 82 Hunslet Warriors 12

CRAIG Lingard hailed his side's second-half display as the head coach's first game at the helm saw Cougars romp to a comprehensive friendly victory.

Keighley ran in 16 tries, with 12 players on debut against their National Conference League visitors, as trialist centre Adam Ryder put in a man of the match performance.

Lingard said: “We were rusty at times, especially in the first 15 minutes but we brought it back towards the end of the first half.

“I was much more pleased in the second half; even though we didn’t score in the first five minutes, we set the platform with our completion rate.

“This game has definitely served us a purpose. One of the things I’ve focused on in pre-season is our shape and attack and we controlled the ball. Our defence was good, which allowed us to stay to our shape and control the game.

“I asked the players to switch on for the first ten minutes of the second half at half-time because I wasn’t happy with the way we played in the opening ten minutes of the first half.

“We ran away with it in the final 25 minutes and that is because of the platform we set ourselves in the first ten minutes of that second half.”

Despite a sloppy opening from Cougars, in which Warriors opened the scoring, Hunslet never posed a serious threat to a rampant Keighley.

Andy Gabriel opened the home team's account as he showed great speed on his feet to burrow over before the returning Sean Hesketh strolled over from five yards following Mike Emmett’s offload.

Callum Dunne scored the first of his four-try haul when he had a walk-in at the corner and, despite a Phil Lythe length-of-the-field interception, Keighley turned the screw going into the interval.

Matty Beharrell threw a dummy to side-step his way round two would-be tacklers before throwing an offload in the next attack to allow Davey Dixon to dive over along the right flank.

Ryder then provided his first moment of magic. From a break downfield, he found space to race around and go in underneath the posts.

The first half was brought to a close just seconds before the hooter, with Josh Lynam powering over.

Ryder looked like a player determined to earn a deal as he continued to show his class, exposing space in the defensive line to get himself a second try.

The big centre took advantage of great play from Beharrell before throwing a 'no-look' offload for Dunne to score his second try.

Nathan Conroy added his name to the scoresheet when he turned his way through under the posts from the play-the-ball. From the kick-off, Beharrell chipped over the top with Gabriel on hand to score.

Dunne doubled his tally, taking advantage of great play from Ryder before being quickest on his feet to pounce after Danny Lawton had kicked through a knock-on from the free play.

Gabriel followed suit and doubled his own tally, finishing off two breaks – first from Ryder and then Liam Darville, racing home beneath the uprights on both occasions.

Harry Aaronson completed the rout with a minute of time remaining, using dummy runners to his advantage to find a way over.

PLAYER RATINGS

COUGARS: Darville 8; Dixon 8; Lawton 7; Ryder 9; Gabriel 8; Brook 7; Beharrell 9; Hesketh 7; Kelly 8; Nicholson 8; Whittel 8; Tonks 9; Emmett 8. Subs: Aaronson 7; Dunne 8; Law 7; Conroy 8; Lynam 8; Sagar 7; Bailey 7; Casey 7.

WARRIORS: McElland 5; Raynor 5; Lythe 5; Norton 5; West 6; Gale 5; Gaunt 5; Gill 5; Brown 5; Johnny Dawson 6; Day 5; Naughton 5; James Dawson 6. Subs: Byers 5; Tatterson 5; Malpas 5; Stillwell 5; Wheatley 5; Bravo 6; Peach 5.