THE Cougars' turbulent pre-season campaign continued as they were thrashed 52-6 at Oldham.

Craig Lingard watched his side conceded nine tries on a tough afternoon in the home side's return to their home ground at Whitebank.

The strength and physicality of the Roughyeds backs was on show from the off and Levy Nzoungou led from the front. He set up the opening try with a flick pass to Dave Hewitt, who weaved his way to the line.

Hewitt then cut his way through the Cougars defence once more, this time putting one on a plate for trialist Zack McComb.

The onslaught on the Cougars line continued as Steven Nield became the third scorer off the afternoon, powering his way through from close range.

Nzoungou turned from provider to scorer shortly before half-time as he powered his way over, despite the best efforts of Harry Aaronson to stop him.

The second half began with the home side extending their lead as Danny Langtree produced a superb short ball into the hands of Danny Rasool, who broke free to the line for a walk-in try.

There was a brief moment of concern on the injury front for Lingard as Benn Hardcastle was forced off the field, although thankfully for the head coach it was nothing more than hyper-extension of the elbow.

Roughyeds hooker Matty Wilkinson was now beginning to cause the Cougars problems and clever play from the nine opened the door for Phil Joy to maraud over.

With the game now won comfortably, there was some exhibition rugby from Oldham as Joe Martin kept the ball alive and played it quickly across the line to Rasool, who grabbed his second try.

The Cougars did end a 161-minute wait for points on the back of a knock-on from the restart, Brendon Rawlins powering his way over on his first appearance of 2018.

Another Wilkinson break led to Oldham's next try as it led to a two-on-one in the hosts' favour, with Danny Bridge racing round behind the sticks.

Hewitt then grabbed his second try from an Oldham break to complete the scoring.