Fryston Warriors 32 Keighley Cougars 50

THE Cougars progressed in the Challenge Cup after scraping past Pennine League champions Fryston Warriors at Featherstone.

Craig Lingard's side opened the scoring in the fifth minute when James Feather squeezed through from dummy half to touch down.

Fryston pulled level when a break instigated by former captain Paul Handforth led to Wayne McHugh diving over next to the posts.

The scores would only remain level for four minutes when a bus-sized gap opened on the Warriors line and Josh Tonks exposed the space to race through.

Yet the home defence held strong before pulling themselves within two points as Jack Lee, another former Cougars player, threw an excellent dummy pass out of the tackle to send Andy Matthews in at the far corner.

The shock appeared to be on when McHugh pounced on a Handforth grubber after half an hour. But the tie was level at the interval as Fryston were penalised for not standing square and the ball was worked across to the right channel, where Danny Lawton pounced.

Keighley began the second half the brighter side and took the lead for a second time when Sean Kelly took the ball out of dummy half and weaved his way underneath the uprights.

Josh Lynam appeared to have his ear bitten in a tackle but Fryston would not go down without a fight and pulled back level just two minutes later when Steve Scott ran over from close range to cross.

The game boiled over when an exchange of words between Davey Dixon and Adam Rothwell escalated into a brawl which led to the pair being sin-binned, as well as Andy Speake and Emmerson Whittel being dismissed.

With the game now 11-a-side, the Cougars took full advantage with three quickfire tries, Adam Ryder crossing in the corner before both Sean Kelly and Brendon Rawlins touched down following breaks down field.

Fryston got over and back to within two tries as Aaron Dobek's grubber was pounced on by the onrushing Shaun Gee, before the Cougars scored once more with Ryder breaking to send Andy Gabriel over.

Former Cougars hooker Lee threatened to spark a fire back in Fryston bellies late in the afternoon as he squeezed over to reduce the gap to two converted tries.

But the final say was the Cougars' as Ritchie Hawkyard raced under the posts on the back of a Gabriel break.