KEIGHLEY Cougars fell to a fourth consecutive defeat as they went down 34-0 at Hunslet on a freezing cold Friday night encounter in Betfred League One.

In truth, the scoreline at half-time did not reflect an otherwise dismal evening’s rugby league, but told the story of one side that took their chances and one that did not. By full-time, it was a fair reflection of the Hunslet performance.

The Cougars got off to a nightmare start when after knocking on in their first set before conceding a penalty on their own line from which Ben Heaton scored.

After Keighley got close to scoring, Hunslet worked their way down the field and exposed a gap in the defensive line from which Nathan Chappell went through to touch down.

Hunslet’s third try came from great work out of dummy half from Vila Halafihi.

On the back of his break, the ball was worked wide to Gareth Potts who managed to see off the interests of Louis Sheriff to get over in the corner.

And the home side killed the game off with two quick-fire tries shortly before the interval as Mike Emmett first burrowed his way over from dummy half before Duane Straugheir broke through the line and managed to round Sheriff to get to the line.

The second half got off to a similar sort of nightmare start to the first as the hosts broke and a cross-field kick by Dean was touched down by Heaton after some pinball on the ground.

Taylor Prell came close to getting the Cougars on the scoreboard but the Hunslet defence held strong to put the winger into touch.

The Cougars’ evening took another sour turn as Benn Hardcastle took a hit in the tackle that forced him from the field with concussion. The incident was put on report by the official.

And after Davey Dixon nearly got his hand to a Jack Miller grubber, Josh Lynam delayed the restart by kicking the ball away, earning himself a stint in the sin bin for his troubles.

The game then petered out in the final quarter until the welcome sound of the full-time hooter - but only after Zac Braham turned through a tackle to score in the final minute after Kieran Moran knocked on close to the line.