Keighley Cougars 30 London Skolars 10

KEIGHLEY Cougars recorded their first win of the Super Eights phase at the fourth attempt as they saw off London Skolars at Cougar Park.

The victory kept alive their hopes of a top-five play-off spot, lifting them into sixth place above Hunslet, who lost at Barrow.

With three games to go, Cougars are two points behind fifth-placed Doncaster, who have a game in hand.

Notoriously slow starters, Keighley fell behind in the ninth minute when Andy Gabriel was caught out of position and James Hill dived over in the corner with Oscar Thomas then converting a penalty for offside.

But Paul March’s side continued the improvement in defence, which they had shown the previous week at Rochdale, as they controlled the remainder of the game.

Danny Lawton opened the Keighley scorecard for the afternoon, seeing off a would-be tackler to fight his way over the line.

Man of the match Adam Brook then put his side into the lead when he showed great footwork and threw a dummy to Darren Hawkyard to free the space to race over and touch down.

Cougars then took an eight-point lead into the half-time interval as Gabriel broke down the right wing and cut inside and sent the pass out to Richie Hawkyard to race round beneath the uprights.

The second half got off to a slow and scrappy start but sprung into life in the 52nd minute as Lawton stepped inside the centre and sent Ross Peltier racing 30 metres to go over next to the uprights.

This led to a bizarre sending-off as a late elbow on Richie Hawkyard in the build-up sparked a brawl on-field. After consulting his touch judge, referee Jamie Bloem pulled out the red card to dismiss the London Skolars water carrier.

Keighley stepped up the onslaught down the hill and, after having an effort ruled out, Gabriel stepped inside and left the London players trailing to go in underneath the uprights.

Skolars did get over again in similar fashion to their first try as Hill dived in at the left-hand corner.

Cougars rounded off the scoring as Aaron Ollett switched the play to leave a bus-sized gap on the London line, James Feather diving over.