Keighley Cougars 10, Workington Town 19

A second chance at home to Rochdale next weekend was little consolation to Jason Demetriou as the Cougars lost their Championship One qualifying semi-final against Workington Town.

Player-coach Demetriou masterminded the two tries that hauled the Yorkshiremen back into a game they trailed 17-0.

But it proved insufficient to fulfil his hopes of making the Grand Final and moving within 80 minutes of promotion at the first attempt.

“We gave away far too much ball and our discipline was rubbish and as a result we lost,” concluded an angry Demetriou, minutes after coming off the field.

“The season’s not over – we’ve got another chance – but we are going to have to play a lot better than we did here. We didn’t stick to our system – we panicked and let the occasion get to us.

“I’m still confident that we’ll get there next week but Rochdale are a good team and we’ll have to stick to our game-plan much better than against Workington.

“It’s knock-out from here and so there’s more pressure and we didn’t handle it well, so we have to do better.”

Despite having the lions’ share of possession and territorial supremacy the Cougars went into the break without anything to show for it and 13 points adrift.

Workington made the most of the ball they did have and clinical finishing earned them two converted tries, from Neil Frazer and Elliot Miller, in the opening 20 minutes.

Veteran half-back Darren Holt added an opportune drop goal five minutes before the interval to leave the Cougars needing to score at least three times in the second half.

Yet within six minutes of the restart, Frazer crossed again to make it 17-0 to the Cumbrians.

Helped forward by back-to-back penalties, Keighley finally got onto the scoreboard when Craig Moss darted onto Demetriou’s perfectly-timed pass, with the full back then converting his own try.

But further errors led to Holt adding a penalty from in front of the posts, to again create a three-score margin.

And although the Cougars hit back swiftly – the Demetriou and Moss combination again yielding a try on the hour – Chris Baines missed the touchline conversion and the mountain proved too big for the hosts to climb.

Cougars: Moss, Duffy, Sagar, Normington, Halley, Demetriou, Smith, Shickell, Feather, Law, Cartledge, Pursglove, Baines. Interchange: Wray, Benjafield, Rawlins, Jones.

Workington: Carter, Miller, Mossop, Low, Frazer, Holt, Kaighan, Coward, Ulstrom, Armistead, Whitehead, McKenna, Stack. Interchange: Bainbridge, McGoff, Clough, Robinson.