Cougars 52 Coventry Bears 10

IN THE emotional cauldron of a packed Cougar Park, the Cougars certainly did it for Jonesy as they reached the League One summit.

Danny Jones' widow Lizzie, cradling their twin children Bobby and Phoebe, came onto the field to a chorus of cheers from the 4,066-strong crowd to release a net of balloons in honour of her tragic husband.

On the field, club captain James Feather put in a man of the match hat-trick performance, while home-grown second-rower Josh Lynam made his 50th appearance for the club.

Player-coach Paul March, still reeling from the death of Jones at the previous weekend's match at London Skolars, said: "I'm proud of how the lads have applied themselves since the tragedy itself.

"There's only 17 on the field but I have a squad of 30 who have all taken the grief in their own way, which is more difficult."

Brendon Rawlins opened the scoring after five minutes as the Aussie forward saw a hole in the line and went over.

Feather then grabbed the first of his three tries when he threw a dummy from the play the ball and dived over from two metres out.

March added a third try in the opening quarter as he dug his studs into the ground to fight over despite the attentions of three Bears defenders.

Eddie Medforth dived over the line twice for the Coventry side either side of a first home try in front of the Cougars' faithful by highly-rated centre Hamish Barnes.

In a slow start to what would unravel into a comfortable second 40 minutes for the home side, Paul Handforth's clever offload to put Jesse Sheriffe through was the only score until the final 20 minutes.

Paul White got over with a clever finish, side-stepping an attempted tackle to race over from a pass over the top from Feather.

But the Cougars enjoyed a comfortable conclusion to the game, which would have been helped by Dan Parker's sin-binning for a professional foul.

Oliver Pursglove crashed over the whitewash for his first try of the season, before Feather toasted one his closest friends in style by completing his three-try haul.

The captain exploited the space left by Parker's yellow card for his second try, before also grabbing the third as Rawlins strolled through a tiring Coventry line.

Rawlins opted to be selfless and send 'Buster' in for the milestone, rather than going alone to grab a brace for himself.