KEIGHLEY Cougars suffered a second defeat in as many weeks at the hands of Newcastle Thunder at Kingston Park, as they crashed 40-12.

It appeared that it wouldn’t be Craig Lingard’s side afternoon early on when, after losing Matt Welham to injury after just two minutes, they conceded three quick tries from their own errors.

The first saw Mo Agoro dive over in the corner after the Cougars allowed Newcastle down the field on the back of consecutive penalties in this Betfred League One clash.

Then, after a forward pass surrendered possession, the home side created a numbers advantage from which Kieran Gill strolled over to score from close range.

The restart was then put out on the full, and on the back of breaks from Liam McAvoy and Jared Blanke, Remy Marginet shot out of dummy half to race over.

Both teams were temporarily reduced to 12 men when a mass brawl saw Rhys Clarke and Jimmy Beckett both sent to the sin-bin for a 10 minute cool-off.

But the Cougars closed the gap heading into the interval with two tries of their own.

The first came through the superb solo effort of Jack Miller, as the half-back skipped through two attempted tackles to dive over.

The Cougars kept the ball alive on the last tackle near to the line, and a superb Josh Lynam kick under pressure to the corner was touched down by Davey Dixon.

And the visitors were unlucky to not be at least level at the break, but superb defence prevented Christopher Cullimore from turning over the line.

The second half was a quieter affair, but the home side did extend their lead through Carne Doyle-Manga who managed to squeeze his way underneath the ruck to get over beneath the crossbar.

Jamie Thackray was penalised for lifting and the Thunder chose to take the two with Marginet converting comfortably.

The French half-back was proving a thorn in the Cougars paws as he did a fortnight previous, but a drop goal attempt was dragged well wide of the sticks.

The home side sealed the victory through Gill’s second eight minutes from time as the centre broke the line and raced over from 30 metres out.

Newcastle still had time for two further tries with Doyle-Manga and Agoro both taking advantage of a tired defence to score their respective seconds.