Keighley Cougars 38, York City Knights 26: York scored 16 points in the last nine minutes to give the scoreline an air of respectability, but other than for that period the Cougars dominated this National league Two contest.

In the first half they played their best rugby of the season to rack up a 26-0 lead and more or less secure their fourth consecutive win of the season.

Coach Gary Moorby wasn't too concerned at the final scoreline, saying: "I'm highly delighted with the result. Our objective was to remain unbeaten and stay top of the league and we achieved that.

"We lost our way at the back end of the second half, but by then the game was in the bag.

"I thought we were superb in the first half and really exposed their defence.

"My only worry is that we still aren't consistent for 80 minutes. Last week we were poor in the first half but went on to win. This week the reverse was true.

"Having said that, after all the kicks in the teeth we suffered last year it's nice to be getting positive results this season, even though we're not quite there yet, and when we click for a full 80 minutes we're really going to tear somebody apart."

York are certainly under-achieving. Featuring a wealth of Super League experience, on paper their squad looks far stronger than Keighley's but this was a game they never looked like winning.

They did come at Keighley hard early on and the Cougars had to stay patient to bag the first try. That came in the 21st minute when, from a superb runaround move, Jason Ramshaw sent Dave Foster crashing over. Adam Mitchell added the conversion to an earlier penalty and the young stand-off finished with seven goals from seven attempts.

Star of the show though was Matt Foster. He bagged two tries before the break which oozed class and edged Keighley further ahead.

James Rushforth also scored when he followed up a neat reverse kick from the impressive Matt Firth.

That made it 20-0, and two minutes before the break Firth created Matt Foster's second try with a superb inside pass.

After the break York opened their scoring when Leigh Deakin raced in from 50 metres out, Danny Brough adding the conversion

Then Mitchell landed a second penalty, Simeon Hoyle went over from acting half and another Firth kick was collected by Gareth Hewitt to complete Keighley's scoring in the 73rd minute.

Late tries from Mark Cain, Trevor Krause and Neil Law (2) spared York's embarrassment.