KEIGHLEY Cougars' faltering second half of their Betfred League One campaign continued with a limp 50-6 home defeat to Doncaster.

The defeat left the Cougars on course for their worst league finish in over a decade and Craig Lingard pulled no punches in his criticism of the players.

“In my entire rugby league career as both a player and a coach, I’ve never been as embarrassed to be involved in a performance as I am with that one,” blasted the Cougars head coach.

“I think the players gave up and are just waiting for the season to end now.

“The supporters, the sponsors and everyone involved with Keighley Cougars deserve better than what they were given today and for me some of the lads have downed tools for the year.

“If I could change the whole 17 for the trip to West Wales Raiders I would but unfortunately I don’t have the numbers in terms of bodies to do that.

“I believe there is a real danger that we could be the team that loses to West Wales based on that performance and we don’t want to be that statistic.

“But the players who missed out today can all expect to be playing on Saturday.”

The tone was set in just the third minute as the Cougars defence allowed Frankie Mariano to race round beneath the uprights.

Matthew Bailey, making his 100th appearance for the club, was forced off with a back injury before Darrell Griffin was carried from the field with what was later diagnosed following the match as a ruptured Achilles.

And the Cougars numbers were reduced even more when Ritchie Hawkyard was sent for 10 minutes after a little niggle at his former team-mate Matty Beharrell following a knock-on in the tackle.

With Hawkyard in the bin, Doncaster scored two further tries, with the first seeing Russ Spiers power over from close range from the resulting penalty.

A Dan Parker penalty then failed to reach touch and the Dons went the length of the field to score as Richard Owen touched down in the corner.

The visitors were then reduced to 12 men for the remainder of the afternoon as Jordie Hedges' first involvement from the bench was a dangerous high shot on Cameron Leeming that resulted in a red card.

The second-half was a feeble affair as the Dons ran rampant to secure their comprehensive victory.

Spiers scored his second from the restart as he broke through the Cougars line and decided against using the options available to him, instead marauding through himself to touch down.

Jack Logan extended the Doncaster lead after he was quickest to a cross-field kick from Beharrell.

And the Dons continued their onslaught as Owen offloaded under pressure from Alfie Seeley to Jason Tali, who dived over from a metre out.

Seeley himself was denied just short of the line twice but the Cougars saved themselves from being nilled as Andy Gabriel touched down after Sam Doherty spilt a swirling kick from Benn Hardcastle.

The next Doncaster attack saw Seeley make superb try saving tackle on Owen to prevent the winger, who made one dual-registration appearance for the Cougars in 2013, scoring a second.

But that only proved to be brief rest bite as Doherty redeemed just minutes after his error for the Keighley try as he squeezed over from close range to score for the visitors.

The Doncaster onslaught didn’t stop there as Jordan Howden offloaded out of the tackle to the unmarked Jason Muranka, who touched down from close range.

Muranka then scored his second to condemn further misery for Cougars.