KEIGHLEY Cougars continued their pursuit of Kingstone Press League One leaders Rochdale as they blew the Hemel Stags away 74-6.

Fifteen tries against a young Stags outfit saw Paul March’s side blow off the cobwebs that had hindered them since their bye week at the end of April.

Darren Hawkyard opened the scoring for the hosts after just four minutes when he strolled through the Hemel defensive line, and the four minutes that followed brought another brace of tries as Paul White scored in the corner before Brendon Rawlins fell over the line.

The Stags had their brief moment of glory when Aaron Hall fought his way over, but this fired Keighley up and Vinny Finigan picked a Paul Handforth kick out of the air to touch down.

Hemel briefly kept the Cougars quiet but when Hamish Barnes eased over it started a period of four tries in nine minutes, with Rikki Sheriffe racing over and Finigan grabbing a second in a carbon copy of his first before Josh Lynam powered his way over on the hooter.

The Cougars began the second half how they had finished the first when Rawlins, who replaced an injured Barnes at half-time, strolled his way over for a second of the afternoon.

The Stags looked a defeated side and it showed with the relative ease of Ross Peltier’s score when he broke into no more than a jog to go in next to the uprights.

Matthew Bailey crossed for his first of the season three minutes later as he ran over, then Finigan completed his treble when he touched down following an outrageous no-look pass across the field by Handforth.

Rawlins himself would seal a hat-trick when he handed off a Hemel tackler to touch down.

Ritchie Hawkyard went over 12 minutes from time as he weaved his way through before darting over from ten metres out thanks to some great dummy run play from White.

James Feather and Chris Clough's afternoons were abruptly ended when they were both sin-binned for a scuffle on the Cougars line.

Handforth then showed his footballing ability with an outrageous backheel flick on for big John Oakes to race onto and dive under the posts on the final hooter.