KEIGHLEY Cougars continued to claw back their 12-point deficit with a hard-earned 18-18 draw at London Skolars in Betfred League One.

After a poor showing in the first-half, the Cougars rallied after the interval in a dominant second-half display that saw Craig Lingard’s side snatch a point.

But following the game, Lingard was left frustrated by his team’s first-half performance.

He admitted: “At half-time I would have taken that result.

“I was really disappointed with our first-half showing and I thought the way we played the difficult conditions was dumb.

“Our end of sets were awful, we didn’t build any pressure or gain any good field position and we allowed London to come against the wind and build sustained pressure on our line.

“When you’ve got the elements in your favour you have to use them and we didn’t use them.

“We were trying to drill the ball through bodies along the ground and it was bouncing up and ricocheting back and they were getting the ball back on the halfway line or we were kicking it dead and giving them a seven-tackle set from the 20-metre line.

“Everyone has been patting them on the back recently so we gave them it at half-time and just said to them that you can get patted on the back but you also need to know when you’re doing it wrong.”

The visitors opened the scoring in comical circumstances.

Skolars captain Iliess Macani threw a wild pass on his own line from which the ball collided with the post protector.

Cougars skipper Benn Hardcastle was the quickest to react as he pounced on the loose ball ahead of Craig Mullen before adding the extras from the boot himself.

London applied a period of relentless pressure on the Keighley line but despite the resilient defending, the hosts finally got through to level the scores as Mullen showed grit and determination to fight his way over from close range.

The men from the capital would then consider themselves lucky to not be reduced to 12 men when Jacob Ogden appeared to lay his head into the chest of Jimmy Beckett at the play the ball.

Skolars took the lead on the half-hour mark as, from a grubber kick on the last, Dan Hindmarsh-Takyi broke and raced 60 metres before offloading to Joe Brown, who raced home next to the uprights.

Josh Lynam and Mike Greenhalgh were sin-binned shortly after when both men exchanged blows following an incident in back-play.

And from the resulting penalty, Richard Wilkinson put a grubber through that Jordan Williams collected to extend the home side's lead.

Keighley came out firing in the second-half and, after Jason Muranka was held up over the line, Jack Miller zig-zagged his way through the London defence to score.

Davey Dixon thought he had brought the Cougars level when he cut inside and raced to the line but the referee ruled that Will Cooke’s pass was forward.

With five minutes remaining, Keighley earned their point when Hardcastle delayed his pass to draw in the defender before sending Aaron Levy through the gap to cross and spark wild celebrations among the healthy travelling Cougars support.

Both teams had a late opportunity to steal the two points with a Cougars hand first denying Neil Thorman a one-pointer.

Then, with less than a minute left on the clock, Hardcastle dragged his drop goal attempt agonisingly wide of the uprights.

The draw left Keighley on minus nine points following their deduction after a change of ownership in the off-season.

PLAYER RATINGS:

COUGARS: Welham 6; Dixon 5; Cooke 6; Hallett 5; Seeley 5; Miller 5; Hardcastle 5; Bailey 8; Feather 7; Hallas 7; Lynam 6; Muranka 6; Beckett 6. Subs: Coventry 5; Levy 6; Gaylor 5; Wray 7.

SKOLARS: Mullen 6; Macani 5; Caro 5; Ogden 5; Brown 5; Wilkinson 6; Meadows 7; Martin 5; Thorman 6; Lloyd-Jones 5; Greenhalgh 5; Williams 6; Hindmarsh-Takyi 7. Subs: Sykes 5; Atmore 5; Mbaraga 5; Bryan 6.

COUGARS: Tries: Hardcastle (2); Miller (48) Levy (74). Goals: Hardcastle (3/3). Sin Bin: Lynam (32 – Fighting)

SKOLARS: Tries: Mullen (12); Brown (30); Williams (34). Goals: Thorman (3/3). Sin Bin: Greenhalgh (32 – Fighting)

ATTENDANCE: 262

REFEREE: Matt Rossleigh (London)