Cougars 35, Workington 6 - GARY MOORBY'S men clocked up a victory the whole Cougar club needed.
Although it was far from perfect it was packed with commitment, just what the coach had asked for, and they looked something back to their pre-slump best.
Town were just no match with the 'bite' in the Keighley pack knocking the stuffing out of them early in the game, allowing the home side to run up a 19-0 half time lead. Ian Sinfield led the way with a on tough performance, supported by Richard Merville and Mick Durham, who were clearly playing for their places off the bench.
Indeed Merville looked the answer to the side's difficulty in finding a quality second prop alongside Phil Stephenson. Scott Parkin shows signs of being a quality player, but he clearly still has a lot to learn and Danny Ekis has looked tired in recent weeks.
Merville looked the part. Fast, strong and good on defence he helped Phil Stephenson set up the platform for victory.
Another revelation was Matt Foster. He switched to full back for injured skipper James Rushforth and looked a class above everybody else on the pitch every time he touched the ball.
Dave foster continues to steadily improve and he opened the scoring in the third minute, sent over by Sinfield -- he's virtually impossible to stop from five metres out. Paul Ashton added a touchline conversion to make it 6-0.
Seven minutes later Cougars bagged their second when Ollie Wilkes was sent crashing through two tackles to make it 10-0 after a break by Stephenson.
Ashton looked to have sent Jason Ramshaw over only to be pulled back for an obvious forward pass. But the cougars didn't have to wait long for their third try, a great run by Matt Foster was halted just short of the Town line but he managed to slip the ball to Chris Wainwright who reached out to touch down.
The fourth try followed the same route as they exposed an obvious weakness on Town's right, this time Ramshaw sent Ricky Helliwell over untouched. Ashton failed to convert the last three tries, all from the left touchline, but he did add a drop goal on the stroke of half time to make it 19-0.
The start of the second half saw the Cougars slip back into old habits that cost them the game the previous week. Too often they chose the wrong option, their handling was poor and they were guilty of wasting good field position with three or four needless passes.
It wasn't until Adam Mitchell was introduced in the 55th minute that they regained their composure.
He looked to have put Wilkes over for his second, only for him to be called back for a dubious forward pass.
Minutes later, on the hour, he put a diagonal kick through the Town defence, followed up to touch down, converted and at 25-0 the game was in the bag.
Matt Foster stole the show in the last 10 minutes. He raced onto a Matty Firth pass before putting Sinfield over for the sixth try, then deep in injury time he raced round the flagging town defence to seal a man of the match performance and complete the scoring, Mitchell failing to add his third conversion.
Town came to Cougar Park bearing gifts, they were their own worst enemy, shocking in execution and ill-disciplined. They conceded 15 penalties to make life very difficult for themselves. They also lost two men to the sin bin, Neil Alexander on the half hour and Anthony Murray in injury time. It was from that second sin-binning that Foster completed the scoring.
The Cumbrian side did get one try with Gareth Dean going over out wide in the 64th minute, Alexander converting, but it was probably more than they deserved.
The Cougars must not expect Barrow to be quite as generous on Sunday when they will have to be back to their best.
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