Keighley 10 Hull KR 24 - COUGARS handed victory on a plate to Hull KR -- with a string of glaring errors and missed opportunities.

If the game had been won and lost on the number of clear cut changes, the Keighley side would have romped to victory. They were powerful in defence and occasionally superb in attack, but the mistakes came at vital moments, were unforgivable, and took a heavy toll.

It all started very brightly with Nathan Antonik, who is growing in confidence with every game, putting a grubber kick into the bottom right hand corner. Craig Horne, who showed determined running throughout the game, was first to pounce.

After that it was all downhill.

Mark Hewitt send Jon Aston on a run to the line and the prop finished with a flourish as he sold his former team mate, Richard Smith, the most outrageous dummy. Smith, who looked strangely out of sorts against his old club, must have turned purple with embarrassment when he saw the video evidence.

But he was far from the only guilty party and there will be many who struggled to watch the video analysis of the match.

Cougars were two points behind after Hewitt landed the first of his four comfortable conversions, but they should have been back in front before the break.

The first of two glorious chances went begging when Jason Ramshaw sent Martin Wood through the line. He drew the cover before passing to Matt Walker who dropped the ball with the line at his mercy.

Karl Smith also set up a gilt-edged opportunity when he raced 50 metres down field and threw out a difficult, but not impossible, chance to Jason Lee which went to ground.

Earlier Wood had also had the Hull defence in tatters when he threw a spectacular pass into a wide open space. He did manage a penalty to put them in with the scores level 6-6 at the break.

After the previous week's comeback against Batley there was no hint of concern in the Cougar camp. Kingston Rovers had a big pack of forwards, but hadn't shown any creative enterprise. The Keighley formula was simple -- cut out the errors and victory was there for the taking.

But disaster struck on the 46th minute as the errors kept on coming. A moment's hesitation was enough to have Whetu Taewa waiting gleefully to intercept Wood's long pass on the half way line and he ran in unopposed.

Eight minutes later the otherwise impressive Alan Boothroyd dropped a messy ball near his own line. Two plays later Mike Dixon dived over from acting half.

At 18-6 Keighley faced a difficult but not impossible task and the fight back should have started when Ian Hughes slipped a pass out to Steve Pickles, but he couldn't hold the difficult opportunity. Once again Rovers piled on the agony when they broke downfield for Dixon to scoot over again. Hewitt's goal fourth made it 24-6 and Cougars were left playing for pride.

Ramshaw and Paul Owen went close before James Rushforth stretched out an arm for a consolation try in the 75th minute.

Simon Booth and Boothroyd were sin-binned for a minor skirmish after 60 minutes, but it was not a bad tempered encounter.

Cougars: R Smith; Horne, Roshforth, K Smith, Lee; Wood, Antonik; Hall, Ramshaw, Boothroyd, Stephenson, Hughes, Pickles. Subs (all used): Owen, Walker, thompson, Slicker.

Hull Kingston Rovers: Crane; Andrews, Nolan, Taewa, Wray; Joe, Hewitt; Aston, Dixon, Hardy, Charles, Bovill, Slater. Subs (all used): Dooley, Durham, Fletcher, Booth.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.