It's been a long time coming, but the Cougars finally achieved their first Northern Rail Cup victory of 2006 in the most impressive manner imaginable.

Super League hopefuls Halifax were simply blown away as Keighley dominated their big spending opponents in every facet of the game.

In front of watching former Cougars' coach -- and current England defensive coach - Phil Larder, this performance was reminiscent of Larder's 'Cougar-mania' era side.

Defending with tenacity, and attacking with purpose and creativity, this was an afternoon of triumph for coach Peter Roe and his onfield general Barry Eaton, who have cobbled together this most enthusiastic of sides from scratch.

Props Phil Stephenson and Toby Williams repeatedly tore holes in the porous Halifax defence, while Richard Knight, Mick Fogerty and Alex Brown remained constant dangers on the fringes.

Throw in the midfield schemings of Eaton and it's clear Keighley should not be the National League whipping boys in 2006.

And while they will not progress from the group stages of this pre-season competition, this victory - and more importantly, the stunning manner of it - sets the Cougars up perfectly for the start of the league season in a fortnight.

Halifax, featuring Keighley old boys Simeon Hoyle and Dave Larder, were 38-10 victors in the reverse clash on February 12 and a repeat looked likely when Halifax captain Damian Ball took Joel Penny's inside ball on go over on 12 minutes.

However, three minutes later the Cougars bounced back when Stephenson fed Alex Brown on the blind side. Brown then drew Halifax full back Nicky Walker to send Fogerty over.

With the Cougars' confidence visibly rising, they added their next try on the next set of six. Knight and Fogerty combined to send Scott Nixon racing away in the left hand corner.

Two Halifax tries in as many minutes then saw the game swing back in their favour.

Centre Andy Kirk brushed through weak defence, before Penny danced his way through for a superb 50 metre solo effort, following a Hoyle half break.

On 36 minutes Keighley winger Sam Gardner almost scored when he collected a long Eaton kick, but was penalised for a double movement. However, Gardner made the scoresheet four minutes later when Matt Foster put him away.

Fogerty claimed his second try soon after half time after Matt Bramald sucked in the defence on a mazy, cross field run. Eaton then added a penalty to give the Cougars a 26-14 lead.

Halifax replied when Walker scored his first try for the club after a Brambani break and a superb off-load by Andy Hobson.

But the gamebreaking try came on 66 minutes when substitute Andrew Feather skipped through the Halifax defence to put the home side into an unassailable 32-18 lead.

Salt was then rubbed into Halifax's wounds when Stephenson, outstanding all afternoon, crashed over for a well deserved try.

On 76 minutes, Eaton kicked a penalty to complete the scoring, after prop Hobson, who spent much of the second half walking a disciplinary tightrope, was penalised for his last in a long line of high tackles.

Roe labelled his side's performance as "fantastic."

"We had a tough game in the mud at Odsal on Wednesday night and lost a couple of players out of that," he said.

"We had a bit of a white board session at half time, working on our inside defence and the players took it on board. Really our defence won it."

James Gosling