Rich pickings for Cougars in a 'valuable' friendly (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Rich pickings for Cougars in a 'valuable' friendly

10:06pm Tuesday 19th January 2010 in Sport By Connor Murphy, Bradford Bulls Reporter

Keighley Cougars 78 Keighley Select XI 4

Keighley Cougars chief Barry Eaton believes his side’s first pre-season hit-out will be invaluable to preparations for the new campaign despite its one-sided nature.

Eaton’s side defeated a local amateur select side 78-4 tonight to win the Peter Fell Memorial match.

It was the first time the Cougars had been in competitive action all winter after friendlies against Hunslet and Halifax were cancelled due to the weather.

And Eaton was merely glad to get out on the field, with the new season just 11 days away.

He said: “It was certainly more valuable than any training session.

“It’s really important that we could get the game on and I’m sure we can progress even further now. We were just starting to touch on structure and gameplan before Christmas.

“But obviously we’ve not been able to do much more other than discuss it since then so it was nice to put it into practice and we’ll be better for that.

“Credit to the local amateur guys, they did really well and their enthusiasm was fantastic. It’s great that they agreed to play us and they always put up a good fight.”

The Cougars had put 50 on the board by half-time.

Ben Sagar opened the scoring within four minutes and the hosts went on to add two more scores before ten minutes had elapsed, Dan Belcher grabbing both. Prop Andy Shickell powered over the line soon after and Jamaine Wray bundled through from dummy half to touch down midway through the half.

Craig Moss finished a slick move for the sixth try and Brendon Rawlins, Jonny Presley and Ryan Benjafield crossed before the break.

Danny Jones converted seven of the tries to make it 50-0.

The scoring slowed down somewhat after half-time but Danny Jones added a try and a conversion within nine minutes of the restart.

Benjafield scored his second of the game before Tom Burton and Gav Duffy touched down, Belcher adding one goal to make it 70-0.

Jack Copperwaite touched down with eight minutes to go and the amateurs got a consolation through Jamie Donnelly before Burton completed the scoring.