KEIGHLEY COUGARS 62 OLDHAM RLFC 0

WELL, how poor was that? Keighley Cougars have spent big and are red-hot favourites to finish top of Betfred League One and go up automatically, but Roughyeds need to do a lot better than this if they are to retain the support and backing of their fans.

To be fair, they were not only playing a class side that’s getting stronger game on game, but a side that’s got a 100 per cent league record with 11 wins from 11 games, has a four-point lead at the top of the table and are red-hot favourites to be strutting their stuff in the Championship in 2023.

As if they weren’t well blessed enough with talent, Cougars chose the Oldham game to unveil their two latest recruits in Eddy Pettybourne and Junior Sa’u, the former with loads of top-level experience around the world and Junior having played international rugby league with New Zealand and Samoa.

Signings of that stature - Pettybourne made his debut off the bench and Sa’u played his first game in Keighley colours on the left wing - send out a message to all and sundry that Cougars are on the prowl and intend to go up in the world.

Oddly enough, the Oldham forwards dealt with Pettybourne reasonably well compared with the lacklustre manner in which they handled some of the others.

Junior hardly saw the ball in the first half and although he was much more active in the second half and scored a spectacular try in the corner, neither he nor Pettybourne enjoyed debuts to write home about.

Roughyeds were killed off because they failed to complete their sets, they defended poorly at times and they showed little appetite for the challenge.

They were out-classed too by a Keighley 17 that included some of the best, most experienced and most expensive buys in this division - players like Dane Chisholm, Toby Everett, Jake Webster and Scott Murrell to say nothing of Pettybourne and Sa’u.

Half-backs Chisholm and Jack Miller ran Roughyeds ragged, but in truth they had it easy because Oldham spilled the ball so much that the home side enjoyed far more possession than they would normally have had.

The one thing you don’t do is give a side like Keighley more ball than was their right, but nearly every time Oldham had it they made a mess of it - and the defence that followed was less than satisfactory.

Full-back Owen Restall and loose-forward Emmerson Whittel were Oldham’s best individually, but in general terms there was a shortage of desire, self-belief and determination which merely played into the hands of the much better home side.

Referee Cameron Worsley handed out three yellow cards in the second-half -- first to Keighley’s Chisholm for dissent, then to Oldham’s Cameron for a technicality and finally to Oldham’s Windrow

Keighley scored 11 tries by Jack Miller (2), Webster, Mo Agoro (2), Nathan Roebuck (2), Sa’u, Aaron Levy, Dan Parker and James Feather, while Miller landed nine of his 11 conversion attempts.

KEIGHLEY: Young; Agoro, Roebuck, Graham, Sa’u; Chisholm, Miller; Everett, Feather, Parker, Webster, Levy, Gaylor. Subs: Kesik, Murrell, Pettybourne, Bailey.

OLDHAM: Restall; Cooke, Morgan, Carr, Hartley; Ridyard, Hewitt; Flynn, Jinks, Spencer, Windrow, Thornton, Whittel. Subs, Cameron, Andrade, Coventry, O’Donnell.