CRAIG Lingard has moved quickly to stamp laziness out of his Keighley Cougars squad as they look to go into positive points this weekend.

Cougars are bottom on -1 after a superb start to the Betfred League One season has seen them lose only one match so far and claw back from their -12-point pre-season deduction.

They will put this league purple patch on the line when they travel to Newcastle Thunder on Sunday (3pm kick-off). The two sides met in the first round of the 1895 Cup in their last game two weeks ago, with a much-changed Cougars side suffering a 38-12 defeat.

Lingard says he held an honest video review session with his players after identifying a lack of leadership on the pitch in their last cup clash.

Benn Hardcastle serves the second match of his three-game suspension this weekend, while Taylor Prell is unavailable for the trip to the North East.

Lingard held a video briefing with his squad following the Thunder cup defeat and wants his squad to bounce back in their league clash.

Lingard said: "I'm not seeing Sunday's game as revenge time. We learned a lot about them and I'm sure they learned a lot about us from the cup game.

"We are back to basics in the league now and that's where we are concentrating this year.

"We will hopefully get into positive points as soon as we can.

"A couple of squad players put their heads up after playing in the cup game, while a couple are still some distance away.

"With Matt Bailey, Dan Parker, Benn Hardcastle and James Feather missing from the cup game, we lost a lot of leadership. We looked for people to step up in their absence.

"After the last time we played Newcastle we had an honest video review. There was a bit of laziness in our play. There was a lack of leadership. Some people were looking around to anybody else to take the lead and set the example.

"There was laziness and we were taking shortcuts against Newcastle that I was not particularly pleased with."

Meanwhile, Cougars second row Josh Lynam's testimonial will kick-off with an event on Sunday, June 2.

The launch event will be held at the Hall of Fame bar at Cougar Park from 3pm and will feature a look back at Lynam's Cougars' career, a memorabilia auction and appearances by Cougars legends.