North Wales Crusaders 34 Keighley Cougars 10

COUGARS player-coach Paul March was left to rue his side’s poor defence as they slumped to a second league defeat of the season.

Four wins on the trot had put Keighley top but they were knocked off their perch by Oldham, who won at Gloucestershire All Golds.

March said: “Last week we were poor with ball in hand but managed to get some tries on the board but North Wales were ruthless and made us pay and we need to prepare ourselves better for the visit of Oxford.”

North Wales took the lead through Karl Ashall after James Feather and Adam Brook came racing out of the line, allowing Scott Turner to charge home in the corner.

Dallimore’s kick on the last forced a knock-on from which Sam Peet’s pass was accepted with gratitude by Lee Hudson, who went over the line.

Shortly after the half-hour mark, Benjamin Dulien handed off out of the tackle and Rob Massam dived over in the far corner.

There was a moment of controversy for the Cougars' first score when Brendon Rawlins appeared to have been tackled but the referee ruled the ball-carrying arm was free, allowing him to offload to White, who touched down in the corner.

The Crusaders found themselves down to 12 men five minutes later when Tommy Johnson’s frustration at not being awarded a penalty boiled over and he found himself sin-binned for dissent after throwing the ball in anger.

Towards the end of Johnson’s stint, a Handforth 40/20 kick paved way for White to throw an outrageous offload, while falling into touch after an attempted tackle from Turner, to send Rikki Sheriffe over the line.

From the restart, Scott Law knocked on and, from the set that followed the scrum, Jono Smith used brute force to fight through to reopen the two-try advantage.

Cougars continued to create their own downfall, with another knock-on giving North Wales ball in hand and, from Stephen Wild’s offload, Turner raced home for his second.

March tried in vain to get the Cougars back into the game but his grubber agonisingly missed the fingertips of the onrushing Danny Lawton.

Welsh international prop Joe Burke had the final say of the afternoon on the hooter when he broke through the Keighley line and, despite the interests of Jesse Sheriffe, raced 40 metres to touch down next to the uprights.