EVERY game is a 'must win' contest for Cougars after they went down to a 37-16 defeat at the hands of Halifax last weekend.

On Sunday they face another tough contest at Batley and know they will need to step up a gear if they are to defeat the fourth placed club.

"They are also on a losing run, although they went close against Leigh last weekend," said Cougar coach Gary Moorby.

He singled out the half-back pairing of Barry Eaton and Dean Lawford as the big danger men at Mount Pleasant.

"They control things very well and the other players respond to their promptings. If we can manage to close them down we should be able to take some of the momentum out of their game.

"It will be a tough contest as always against Batley, but these are tough times and we have to be prepared to keep working hard and hopefully we can pull through," he said.

Highlight of last week's game was a scintilating Matty Firth try, which could rate at NL1's try of the season, but it brought little consolation at the final whistle.

"Once again we began slow and paid the price by conceding two relatively soft tries. It is an area we have constantly addressed, verbally and on the training ground. We simply cannot afford to keep letting other sides take the lead through our lack of urgency. We have stepped up a level and any error or poor option is quickly exploited by the opposition.

"We then fought our way back to within a score at half time, that said we should have been in front at the interval. There was nothing wrong with Craig McDowell's disallowed try, the match video clearly shows that Lee Patterson had the ball knocked out of his hands by a Halifax player and it went behind him but the touch judge said he had knocked on.

"At the other end the referee awarded a try that was a blatant double movement, where was the touch judge then?" Moorby said.

n Matty Firth (right) finishes a classic Cougar try.