Rochdale Hornets 18 Keighley Cougars 4

COACH Paul March admits all their remaining fixtures are 'must-win' matches after Cougars suffered a sixth defeat in seven games.

They remain winless in the Super Eights phase and three points off a top-five play-off spot, with fifth-placed York City Knights having a game in hand on them.

Yet March’s side can take positives from their defeat at Hornets, putting in a valiant effort throughout and making a big improvement defensively.

That was especially so after playing an hour with 12 men after Paul White was sent off for striking.

March said: “Despite being down to 12 men for the majority of the game, defensively we put in a good showing.

“It was one of our better defensive displays of the season but at the end of the day, we’ve lost the game again and it’s disappointing as the lads worked so hard for each other. We worked well as a defensive unit and were asking questions with ball in hand.

“Obviously when you’re down a man, you have to reshuffle but the game management wasn’t good. We were trying to score off every play and trying to find that miracle play to get us back into the game when we just needed to knock out some sets.

“The middle units were playing longer minutes and we had a back row playing centre and a centre out on the wing but a lot of the boys put their hands up and were counted. The negative is we have suffered another loss but we can take plenty of positives.

“York’s defeat to Barrow keeps us in touch with the top five but we need to start picking up those wins now and every game is must win, starting with the visit of London on Sunday.”

Cougars thought they had got off to the best possible start after three minutes when, after a lovely exchange of passes, Paul Handforth dived over underneath the posts but the effort was ruled out for a forward pass in the build-up.

The visitors opened the scoring in the 11th minute when, on the last tackle, Adam Brook’s grubber fortunately bounced back into the half-back's hands and he squeezed his way over from a metre out.

The match officials struggled to keep control of the game with late challenges and dangerous tackles missed throughout, so it came as no surprise when things finally blew up in the 21st minute.

After White had broke down the left flank, he was caught by opposite number Corey Lee, who appeared to head-butt the veteran winger on the floor. White’s retaliation led to a 26-man punch up which resulted in his eventual dismissal.

The Hornets finally got on the scoreboard in the 52nd minute when, on the back of a penalty for offside, Jordan Case exposed a space in the Cougars line to race through and put the home side into a two-point lead.

They extended their advantage midway through the half when, after a set of fantastic on-the-line tackles from Keighley, pressure finally paid off when Ben Moores raced across the line and sent Warren Thompson crashing over.

Cougars had their moments in the second half with Andy Gabriel breaking down the field on a couple of occasions and Ross Peltier being held up over the line following a lovely 40/20 from Handforth.

And with the final action of the afternoon, former Cougars loanee Samir Tahraoui shrugged off four would-be tacklers in black and gold to touch down as the hooter sounded. His try came on the back of great work from Josh Crowley to get his side into position.