Cougars 18, Newcastle Thunder 14

COUGARS finished their lengthy pre-season campaign with a hard-fought victory over fellow League One promotion hopefuls Newcastle Thunder.

In awful conditions at Cougar Park, both sides put in a phenomenal amount of effort despite the wet and muddy pitch causing numerous handling errors throughout the game.

But, it was the Cougars who took the lead midway through the first half when after Rikki Sheriffe forced a Lee Mapals knock on, his brother Jesse Sheriffe played a clever high offload out of the tackle to Paul White who walked the ball home comfortably into the corner.

A poor finish to the first half by Keighley allowed the visitors to cross twice to take a four point lead into the half time interval.

The Thunder levelled with five minutes of the half remaining when Andy Gabriel was left facing a two on one and Lee Mapals used a Sam Bowring dummy run to his advantage to go over in the right hand corner.

And on the hooter, a clever chip over the top by reigning League One Young Player of the Year Matty Beharrell was caught in the air and put down behind the line by Stuart Kain who came into the side in place of Jordan Blades during the warm-up.

With the conditions worsening after half time a Paul Handforth grubber got stuck in the mud behind Newcastle full back Jordan Meads and Ash Lindsay pounced on the ball to touch down next to the posts to restore the lead.

White dived home in the corner shortly after the hour mark to open up some breathing space between the two teams after a clever pass out of the tackle from Rikki Sheriffe.

Newcastle threatened a grandstand finish two minutes from time when from a penalty, Sam Bowring broke down the left hand side to offload on the inside to allow Kain in for his second of the afternoon.