Keighley Cougars 10, Hull KR 24: Cougars lost their 100 per cent start to the season in a tale of missed chances and sloppy handling.

Hull KR had only four chances in total and scored on each occasion. The Cougars opened and closed the scoring but in between fluffed at least five good opportunities and paid the price.

Coach Karl Harrison was obviously disappointed but not too downbeat. He said: "Today has been a blip. We were comfortably beaten. They took their chances well. We had maybe ten and only managed two.

"Rovers are a quality side and will be thereabouts at the end of the season as will we. In a way defeat may be a good thing and in the long term stand us in good stead."

Keighley got off to a flying start when a second minute Nathan Antonik grubber kick was pounced on in the corner by Craig Horne and things looked promising.

But ten minutes later Rovers' Mark Hewitt found John Aston and he finished superbly by dummying his former team-mate Richard Smith to go in next to the posts leaving Hewitt an easy chance to land the first of his four conversions.

Keighley hit back and hit back well but they couldn't convert their pressure into points. They certainly had two good chances of taking a lead into the break.

The returning Jason Ramshaw and Martin Wood combined superbly but the stand-off's pass to Matt Walker was spilled with the line at his mercy.

Shortly afterwards Karl Smith broke superbly from inside his own half but as he reached the Rovers' line his inside pass to Jason Lee went to ground and another chance had gone.

All Keighley could manage then was a Wood penalty to make the score 6-6 at the break.

With both teams spilling possession it became clear that the side which controlled the ball best would win the game and so it proved.

Both Rovers' next two tries came directly from Keighley handling errors. Whetu Taewa intercepted a Wood pass to race in from half-way then when Alan Boothroyd knocked-on short of his own line, Mike Dixon went over two plays later and at 18-6 Rovers had the points in the bag.

Dixon pounced for a second try which Hewitt converted to complete Rovers' scoring and try as they might Keighley's final pass just seemed to fail them.

All they could manage was a James Rushforth try in the corner five minutes from time, the youngster doing well to touchdown with three tacklers around him.

Keith Reeves

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