KEIGHLEY Cougars' troubled week came to a bitterly disappointing end with a humiliating 12-52 home defeat at the hands of Oldham Roughyeds.

Just four days removed from the sacking of Craig Lingard, the Cougars struggled to cope with the physicality of the Oldham pack as they slumped to their heaviest defeat of the season.

The visitors opened the scoring early when Liam Bent reacted quickest to a Gareth Owen grubber behind the sticks.

Despite losing Lewis Wray to a head injury, the Cougars thought they had levelled the scores through Jamie Thackray but the veteran’s effort was ruled out for a forward pass by Jack Miller.

Two superb defensive efforts prevented Oldham momentarily, but they would double their lead eventually as Owen managed to squeeze his way over the line from dummy half.

Keighley did get on the scoreboard as on the back of a penalty for offside, Miller opened the defensive line to send Louis Sheriff racing through for a try on debut.

However, Oldham were to score once more before the interval when Ritchie Hawkyard kept the ball alive and Kyran Johnson skipped through the line to send Paul Crook crashing over.

The Cougars did have two chances late on in the first half, but the visitors defence held strong to deny both Harvey Hallas and Jason Muranka.

The second half would be all Oldham as the Roughyeds battered the Cougars from the moment the whistle blew for the restart.

After Crook took the two points on offer when the home side were penalised for not releasing after the held call, Danny Langtree stole the ball in a one-on-one tackle to race 60 metres to the line.

Moments later, the away side scored two tries in as many minutes, the first seeing Dave Hewitt score after a break down the field before the Oldham pack bullied their way down the slope from the restart with the ball being worked to Zack McComb to score in the corner.

There would be brief respite when Miller dived over on the back of a Matthew Bailey break but that would be as good as it got as Oldham turned the screw once more.

Jack Holmes would touch down in the corner when he got on the receiving end of a floating kick to the corner from Hewitt.

And then salt would be firmly rubbed into the wounds, as two more kicks forced two errors and from both former Cougar Emmerson Whittel was the quickest to react to seal a late brace of four pointers.