COUGARS chairman Gary Fawcett believes a sense of injustice can inspire them to promotion next year.

The past season was nothing short of disastrous for Paul March’s side as they fell through the relegation trapdoor in highly controversial circumstances.

After Batley and Doncaster were docked points for fielding ineligible players on dual-registration, they both saw their points reinstated, which meant that Batley stayed in the Championship at Cougars’ expense.

Fawcett immediately spoke of a possible legal challenge against the RFL but, ultimately, it did not materialise and Cougars accepted their fate.

Although the whole saga has left a bitter taste in the mouth of every Keighley player, supporter and director, Fawcett senses an opportunity to put things right next term.

The vast majority of last season’s squad have been retained and Fawcett is targeting promotion from League One and glory in the League One Cup.

The Cougar Park chief said: “We think we deserve to be in the Championship.

“We feel very badly done by, given the process which has left the club where it is. It’s not just me, everybody associated at the club feels very badly done by.

“There is an incredible amount of frustration but I have laid out the reasons why we can’t do what we necessarily want to do.

“Bizarrely, it was our best-performing season since 1996 on a win and bonus point ratio.

“Marchy and the players did not deserve to go down but you can only take that frustration with you for so long.

“We have to accept the fact that we’re going to be in League One next season and we’re now determined to make sure that we’re not going to be in League One in 2016.

“On paper, despite the fact we have lost a few of the guys, we’ve certainly got one of the best teams in the division.

“We just need to be focused and show that. Our focus is to win the League One Cup and get promotion – those are our only two objectives.

“The guys should use what has happened to the club to energise them on the field next year.

“They shouldn’t be giving anybody any chances on the field because we didn’t get any chances last season, as has been shown.

“We’ve just got to be cold and clinical because we should be beating every other team in League One. That’s my view.”

Fawcett said the club took the decision to put money into the squad rather than into a legal battle they may have lost.

He added: “If the club had been a bit financially stronger, we would probably have gone for full-blown litigation.

“It would have cost £30K or £40K and we would probably have gone for an injunction to force the members to sort it out.

“But the club didn’t have that money. If we had spent that money rather than put it into the team, the fans might have thanked us at the end of this year but not at the end of next year.

“We had to make a quite difficult decision about what we were going to do.

“We thought the best thing to do was to have the best team possible, not risk the money on the legal action that we could lose.

“While we don’t want to accept it, we just need to make sure we’re doing the best we can next season.”

Meanwhile, Daley Williams is nursing a broken jaw sustained during training and will be sidelined for several weeks.

March said: “It was unfortunate in that he caught a stray arm, but he will be ready to go in a few weeks.

“He’s just doing weights at the moment, but he will rejoin the lads in other work after Christmas.”

Cougars will also play Gloucestershire All Golds during pre-season at home on Saturday, February 14 (3pm kick-off), giving them five games in total.

March added: “We now have five games lined up. We have games against Gloucestershire and Gateshead, who we do not know too much about, although we know they are both improving.

“Barrow and Swinton both came down last year so we know about them and how strong Leigh will be.”