Barry Eaton has already noticed the increasing quality Keighley Cougars are facing having been promoted from Championship One last season.

Head coach Eaton said ahead of their Co-operative Championship home debut on Sunday against Leigh Centurions: “We have to understand we’ve made a step up in class, and if you give the ball away cheaply against Championship sides, they’ll punish you for it.”

Cougars, who lost 62-18 at Barrow in midweek in the Northern Rail Cup but ran Toulouse close in the Carnegie Challenge Cup last weekend, are still without Aussie Brendon Rawlins, who dislocated a shoulder against Toulouse, and full back Dan Belcher, who faces more tests on an ankle injury.

Meanwhile, Eaton believes he is getting to grips with his best Cougars team.

After a pre-season heavily disrupted by the weather, Keighley have had to learn on their feet so far this campaign – with mixed results.

An impressive Rail Cup campaign saw them qualify for the quarter-finals with a game to spare but a 72-10 defeat at Widnes in their league opener took the gloss off.

A busy week has given Eaton chance to finalise his best combinations.

He said: “Possibly because of the disruption to our pre-season, I didn’t get a full chance to look at everyone as much as I would’ve liked. But now I’m in a position to say what my best team is.

“Especially trying to integrate new signings, it was unfortunate we had friendlies cancelled.

“Over the course of this week, we will have been able to look at every member of our first-team squad in a first-team environment.”

But Eaton is confident his players can put the opening-day embarrassment against Widnes behind them when they face Ian Millward’s side on Sunday, as long as they continue to tighten up on defence.

“The Widnes game was a massive blip,” he said.

“We made a lot of individual errors on defence that we don’t practice and they baffled me and the players.

“They were just errors where people haven’t communicated with the man alongside them and that’s something we started to put right against Toulouse.

“We dominated for long periods defensively last Saturday but we shipped the ball to the opposition too easily.

“They scored four tries on the back of us doing a repeat-set defence and then not completing the next set.

“At any level, that’s asking for trouble.”