Liam Harris helped himself to 18 points as York Knights cruised into the Challenge Cup quarter-finals with a 56-10 win over Championship side Keighley Cougars at the LNER Community Stadium, writes Emma Kennedy.
Harris stole in from close range to get his side off the mark in the 10th minute and added his second on the hour mark as well as kicking five conversions.
King Vuniyayawa also scored two tries, with further efforts from Sam Wood, Denive Balmforth, Josh Griffin, Ben Jones-Bishop, Ata Hingano and Nikau Williams, in the Knights’ impressive 10-try show.
York head coach Mark Applegarth had made his intentions plain by naming a strong line-up as he looked to maintain momentum after a strong start to their inaugural Super League campaign.
Vuniyayawa, Wood and Balmforth all joined Harris in crossing in a fine first-half display and Griffin added his side’s fifth shortly after the interval.
But Keighley were far from disgraced and finally got on the scoreboard five minutes into the second half when Brad Holroyd dived in at the corner.
George Flanagan grabbed an impressive second try for the Cougars after 66 minutes when he charged out of dummy half and pushed through three York defenders to score, with Izaac Farrell’s conversion taking the visitors to double figures.
By then Jones-Bishop and a second from Harris had already made the result a formality, and further efforts from Hingano, Vuniyayawa and Williams wrapped up an emphatic win.
Nevertheless Applegarth was far from satisfied with his side’s performance, saying: “Indifferent is probably the word.
“We know there’s more to us but we can’t just keep saying there’s more to us, we have to make sure we work hard on the training field.
“There’s a few areas we need to fix up. I’ll have a look at those two tries because I would have liked to have kept it to zero.
“It’s probably down to concentration and staying in the moment.”
There was no shame in defeat for part-time Keighley, who gave a decent account of themselves against far superior Super League opposition.
Their head coach Ian Hardman spoke to Cougars’ in-house media team at full-time, saying: “It was a big challenge for us to come here against a very good York side, who are really big and physical.
“I thought our lads were excellent, the way they stuck in the contest for long periods.
“Even when the game looked to be getting away from us, we found little moments to get ourselves back into it through hard work and effort.
“I’m glad we got the two tries in the second half, which I thought we deserved.
“I’m proud of the lads and I want us to take some of that into next week’s game (in the Championship at Newcastle Thunder) now.”
Prop Leo Aliyu was back after a lengthy period out injured, but joint-captain and half back Matty Beharrell missed out for the first time this season after breaking his wrist in the previous game against Workington Town.
Both Jordan Schofield and Oliver Whitford suffered blows to the head against York, with the latter failing his HIA, so he will miss the Newcastle game due to concussion protocols.
While Cougars were in Challenge Cup action at the weekend, the preliminary round of the 1895 Cup also took place.
Keighley knew they would be away in the first round to the winner of London’s tie against Barrow.
And Cougars will be travelling to the capital on the weekend of April 18/19, after the Broncos beat their Cumbrian visitors 36-10.
Brave Keighley Cougars exit Challenge Cup as York beat them | Bradford Telegraph and Argus
