Keighley Cougars 40, Gateshead Thunder 20

The Cougars kicked off the 2009 season with a bang when they beat Gateshead Thunder in the Northern Rail Cup in last night’s re-arranged game at Cougar Park.

The match was originally scheduled for Sunday but had to be postponed because of the frosty conditions.

Keighley trailed 12-14 at the break against a team who were physically bigger and were promoted as National League Two champions in 2008.

Barry Eaton, the Cougars Head Coach, said: “The boys stuck in well and, after a scratchy first half, we played some good Rugby.

“When you look at the match statistics it tells its own story. In the second half we had 14 sets of six tackles with the ball and completed all 14.

“That put pressure on the opposition and it paid dividends for us in that second half.”

Although substitute prop Scott Law picked up the Man of the Match award from Link Telecom for a barnstorming performance that really punished the Thunder defence, there was a second half hat-trick of tries for stand off Jon Presley.

Pres picked up all three tries in the last 20 minutes of the match when Gateshead were tiring and his partnership with scrum half Danny Jones got better and better the longer the game progressed.

Jones also contributed to Thunder’s down fall by landing six conversions from seven attempts including one which bounced over via the cross bar.

Tries by Gavin Duffy and George Rayner together with two conversions by Jones kept Keighley in touch at half time after Thunder had sent Kevin Neighbour, Steve Sanderson and Ben McAlpine in for tries one of which was converted by Lee Branighan.

In the second half Cougars tackled their hearts out and that broke Thunder’s will and game plan.

Cougars hit back with tries by James ‘Buster’ Feather, Ollie Pursglove and Presley’s hat-trick while Jones banged over four more goals.