Keighley Albion Ladies 26

Hull FC Ladies 22

KEIGHLEY Albion defeated Championship division Hull FC in the Coral Women's Challenge Cup first round in a fiery tie.

Albion, being the underdogs in the First Division, started well and made some good ground up the hill towards the sticks.

It took more than 25 minutes to break the stalemate with Albion not giving in to the crunching Hull tackles.

Emma Templeton stormed over the whitewash to a roar from the large home crowd. Amy Illingworth added a kick.

Some great attack from Keighley saw Saima Hussain take the ball from acting half and draw defenders in and then blazed past them out wide to score a great individual try.

Templeton stormed over again with Illingworth adding extras.

The home team were dominating open play and started to gel as a unit. Sarah Cartwright and Sarah Shillito worked hard to keep the opposition at bay.

Hull managed to score just before half time to reduce Albion's lead to 16-6 at the interval.

After the break, Keighley were now on a roll which saw Templeton record her hat-trick.

Keighley now seemed again in control of their higher division visitors.

Hull seemed to gain some confidence with a few interchanges from the bench and scored again.

Newcomer and ever-improving Nicole Hannah forced her way over the opposition's line to score her first try for the club.

A punch from Hull saw Templeton red carded for retaliation. Laura Ackroyd was red carded for dissent.

A few minutes earlier a sin bin for Keighley meant they had 10 on the pitch.

Used to low numbers, Albion battled on relentlessly. A few more decisions saw two of Albion’s sideline supporters also shown red cards.

Hull took advantage of short numbers and scored two tries on the bounce but ran out of time to win.

It was an all round great team performance and the Albion ladies are through to the second round.

Player of the match for Keighley was Saima Hussain.

A mention needs to go to Templeton who also was awarded player of the match in the recent cup final victory in the winter league. She played an amazing game until the red card incident.

A great all round game for Albion with some new faces that hopefully will keep the numbers on the up for Keighley Ladies.