Keighley Cougars 28, York City Knights 12

COUGARS player-coach Paul March praised his side's completion rate as they opened the new League One season with a victory over York.

March's men were unlucky to trail at half-time after being the better of the two teams but then denied their opponents a point after the interval to win by a comfortable margin.

The Keighley boss said: "Our completion rates were superb and when you've got that much ball, the other team are doing a lot of defending. That, in the end, was the difference between the two sides."

Despite being the side to kick off, the Knights had more of the ball in the opening five minutes and notched the first points of the afternoon when Josh Tonks broke a tackle before offloading to send Pat Smith over next to the posts.

It was not long before the Cougars responded when, four minutes later, an ankle tap prevented Scott Law from crossing before Paul Handforth played a pass out to Paul White on the wing and he dived over in the corner.

Keighley took the lead in similar fashion, with White this time walking the ball home after being on the receiving end of a Rikki Sheriffe offload.

But it was York who established a two-point interval lead when, from a scrum, former Cougars player Jonny Presley took the ball and raced 30 metres unchallenged to go in under the sticks.

The second half was then all Cougars as they took full advantage of the tiring opposition defence in awful conditions.

Handforth's delayed pass opened up enough room to allow Josh Lynam to race through and touch down to give Keighley the lead again and they never looked back.

Minutes later, Danny Jones' high bombing kick was knocked backwards by White and, from the advantage played, Rikki Sheriffe raced round Nev Morrison to get over the whitewash.

Law grabbed the game's final try 20 minutes from time when he powered through two onrushing York defenders to burrow over the line.

Jones had the opportunity to extend the lead but put his penalty attempt from 30 metres just wide of the uprights, leaving him with four goals on the day.