COUGARS prop Ross Peltier admits last weekend’s shock home defeat to Doncaster has given his side a huge wake-up call ahead of Sunday’s Challenge Cup showdown at York City Knights.

Paul March’s side head for Bootham Crescent to face their League 1 rivals on the back of a disappointing 44-28 loss to the Dons in their first home league game of the campaign.

While promotion remains the priority for Cougars, Peltier believes success in the Challenge Cup and iPro Sport Cup can help fuel their league campaign.

Ahead of this weekend’s fourth-round tie, Peltier said: “We had a good run in the Challenge Cup two years ago and I think everyone will want to do a lot better after what happened on Sunday.

“Losing to Doncaster the way we did was a shock result and it has woken us up, so it’s about bouncing back against York and doing well in the cup.

“I think we have got the strongest core of any side in this league but Doncaster had players such as Iafeta Paleaaesina from Hull FC made a big difference really.

“Attacking-wise we are as good as anyone but we need to improve on our defence and tighten up at York on Sunday because we want to go as far as we can in the Challenge Cup.

“We beat York twice last year and it will be interesting to see where they are at. It will definitely be a good test for us.”

March’s side reached the quarter-finals of rugby league’s famous old knock-out cup competition in 2014, where an understrength side were beaten 56-6 at Widnes.

The game was memorable for the fact that March, then player-coach for Cougars, was not allowed in the ground due to a two-month stadium ban from the RFL for abusing a match official.

Instead he watched the game on Sky in the nearby Cricketers Arms pub and Peltier remembered: “I started in that quarter-final at Widnes and it was a strange one.

“Marchy had fallen out with the RFL and got his ban, so he said ‘right, I’m not going to put a strong side out’, just to make a point to the RFL.

“I remember Sky coming down to training and they were saying ‘you can’t put this squad out, we want to see players who have played Super League’.

“Everyone put pressure on Marchy and that made him go even further the other way by putting all the young lads out.

“We did a lot better than what people thought we would do, but if we got that far again I’m sure we would put a much stronger team out.”

Peltier, who represented Jamaica in their World Cup qualifiers against the USA and Canada at the end of last season, spent time in the youth ranks at Bradford Bulls before joining Huddersfield Giants.

He has ambitions to return to the full-time environment he enjoyed at Huddersfield, although his overriding aim is to help Cougars to promotion and achieve success in the cups.

Peltier said: “We want to try and go as far as we can in both cup competitions and win promotion.

“In the past there has been talk of Super League clubs being interested in taking me and obviously I had a year in the full-time environment at Huddersfield.

“I stopped playing for a bit and last year I didn’t have the season I wanted to have.

“But after the pre-season I’ve had and playing for Jamaica in the World Cup qualifiers, I’m feeling good and playing some good rugby.

“You never know what can happen but I’m certainly in good form.

“I scored two tries for Jamaica against America and I just need to keep pushing and see where it takes me.”