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

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

A beaming March said: “As far as victories go, they don’t get much easier than they did today.

“We did a professional job, we came out of the blocks and started like a house on fire with ball in hand.

"By scoring four quick tries we killed the game and any sort of contest, especially as, defensively, we tackled in numbers.

“The motivation for the lads was the space they had on the field and they can only play what they see in front of them but the big thing was that we stuck to the game plan.

“We’ve got our league fixture against the London Skolars on Saturday and it’s disappointing as I feel we need a competitive game which will really work the boys ahead of the cup final against York and we don’t get that playing the southern sides.

“The only negative today for me was we conceded what I feel was a soft try but that’s something we can work on ahead of the trip to London.”

Darren Hawkyard opened the scoring for the hosts after just four minutes when he strolled through the Hemel defensive line.

The four minutes that followed brought a 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 then Hamish Barnes eased over after throwing a dummy to open up room in front of him to race through.

The try 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.

There was a brief sour note for the home side as they lost top try-scorer Barnes to a dislocated shoulder following a heavy challenge.

Josh Lynam wrapped up the first half on the hooter as he powered his way over despite the attentions of three Stags.

Cougars began the second period as they had finished the first when Rawlins, who replaced the 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 from 20 metres out.

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

Rawlins sealed his hat-trick when he handed off a Hemel tackler to touch down, much to the joy of a small but loud Cougars support.

Ritchie Hawkyard touched down 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 to bring a would-be tackler out wide.

James Feather and Chris Clough's afternoons were abruptly ended when they were sin-binned for what appeared to be a nothing scuffle on the Cougars line.

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