Keighley Cougars 4 Warrington Wolves 74

Cougars were put to the sword by Warrington, who made a confident start to their defence of the Tetley’s Challenge Cup by beating the hosts in the fourth round for the third year in a row.

Centre Ryan Atkins scored four of the holders’ 13 tries, while 19-year-old prop Glenn Riley marked his senior debut with a well-taken try as the visitors cruised to victory in front of 1,413 spectators.

The Cougars simply had no answer to the power of forwards Garreth Carvell and Trent Waterhouse or the pace of Atkins, while acting captain Brett Hodgson marshalled the side from full back.

It was pacy winger Chris Riley who opened the scoring after eight minutes, taking Hodgson’s pass 70 metres out and outsprinting the cover to touch down, while Atkins demonstrated the Wolves’ danger close to the line by burrowing his way over from five metres out.

Hodgson’s short pass got the 6ft 5in Waterhouse stretching out for the line to claim his side’s third try and the visitors engineered a two-man overlap to gift Atkins his second.

Keighley had their moments, although they failed to make full use of the wind and a slope in their favour in the first half.

Hooker James Feather broke clear only to make the final pass to Warrington’s Gareth O’Brien and Wales stand-off Danny Jones regathered his own kick over the Wolves defence, only for the supporting Ben Sagar to be caught by the cover.

There was no way back when Wales winger Rhys Williams scored either side of the interval to stretch his side’s lead to 32-0 as Warrington cut loose with six further tries within 12 minutes of the restart.

Replacement hooker Michael Monaghan’s superbly-timed passes got Waterhouse and O’Brien into yawning gaps in the Keighley defence for Atkins and Richie Myler to finish off long-range moves.

The rampant Wolves showed no mercy as Atkins scooped up a grubber kick by Keighley’s player-coach Paul March and went 80 metres for his fourth try which brought up the half-century.

Atkins then sent Riley over for his second and O’Brien got in on the scoring act to extend his side’s lead to 62-0 before Keighley full back Paul White picked up March’s pass to go over for a consolation try during a rare foray into the visitors’ 20-metre area. It was only a temporary respite for the part-time outfit, however, as Williams found Glenn Riley, who proved unstoppable from ten metres out.

Loose forward Ben Currie broke clear for Myler to send in Hodgson for Wolves’ 13th try. The veteran full back kicked his 11th conversion to register his 26th point.