KEIGHLEY Cougars lost their only pre-season friendly ahead of the new season, losing 46-24 against a young Leeds Rhinos side in the Derek Hallas Trophy.

Both sides had early chances to break the deadlock with Jason Muranka held-up moments before Leeds worked their way downfield where Muizz Mustapha would find his path blocked by a scrambling defence.

It would be the Rhinos who opened the scoring as Corey Johnson broke the line with a show and go before offloading to Liam Whitton, who raced over from close range.

The game went into a lull without any real moment of note midway through the first half with the exception of a Will Cooke effort that was ruled out for a forward pass as the centre made the line.

But the home side would draw level through captain Benn Hardcastle who sold a dummy at the line and raced through.

And the Cougars took the lead just two minutes later as Jack Miller took the play the ball and managed to just squeeze himself over the line from close range.

The Rhinos would level the scores themselves, though, in the 36th minute as Harry Newman broke through two attempted tackles, managing to stretch his arm over the line for the try.

And Rob Burrow’s young side took the lead heading into the break as Jack Broadbent gave the Cougars defence the slip to race round behind the uprights.

The home side would have considered themselves unlucky as an apparent try was ruled out for a foot in touch which was hotly contested by the Cougars.

Leeds would compound the misery by going down the field and scoring through Tom Barton.

Keighley wouldn’t go down without a fight and got back into the game through Cooke, who turned through a tackle to score on the back of a penalty.

However a handling error from Joshua Smith was punished through Broadbent who picked up the loose ball and went the length to score.

The game was turning into an end to end affair and the hosts got back into the game once more as trialist Jack Arnold showed great strength to score.

Leeds opened up the two score margin again through Tyler Dupree who managed to get over from close range after an injury stoppage for Alex Williams.

The Rhinos wrapped it up with second tries for both Whitton and Newman.