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Cougars Back On Home Soil – Barrow Preview


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Keighley Cougars v Barrow Raiders Match Preview by Joshua Chapman (@JRCSport)

Date: Sunday 26th June

Time: 3:00pm

Venue: Cougar Park, Keighley.

The Cougars were left humbled and humiliated in the south of France last weekend and will be looking to bounce back as the Barrow Raiders visit Cougar Park this Sunday.

LAST TIME OUT:

Keighley Cougars suffered a 84-6 thrashing in France at the hands of League One leaders, Toulouse Olympique. After conceding six first half tries, Matthew Bailey did score on the half-time hooter to make sure the Cougars were not nilled on foreign soil. However, Toulouse were as ruthless as ever in the second forty, as they ran in a further nine tries with full-back Mark Kheirallah the star of the show with four tries and twelve conversions.

Barrow Raiders eased to victory as the beat the Hemel Stags 62-4 in Cumbria. Eze Harper scored a brace on his debut after joining on loan from the Leigh Centurions with Cameron Pitman and Nathan Mossop also scoring a double apiece. Further tries from Liam Harrison, Andy Litherland, Chris Fleming, Dan Toal and Martin Aspinwall were more than enough to see of the Stags.

TEAM NEWS:

Cougars Head Coach Paul March is set to ring the changes following the defeat in France. Both his loan signings, Jonny Campbell and Will Milner, are expected to debut whilst there could also be recalls for the likes of Andy Gabriel, Danny Lawton and Sonny Esslemont. Ritchie Hawkyard (Groin) and Ash Lindsay (Concussion) will both miss out this Sunday with Charlie Martin set to play despite a shoulder injury sustained in Toulouse.

Barrow are expected to welcome Danny Morrow back into the side after the forward served the last of a four-match suspension in Sunday’s victory over the Hemel Stags. Nathan Mossop is expected to retain his place in the seventeen after marking his return from injury with a brace of tries against the Stags as could Chris Fleming who also returned from injury last weekend. Matty While is out injured though with a dead leg.

KEY BATTLE:

These two clubs know an awful lot about each other, on and off the field, and there are a number of key areas across the pitch in which this game could be both won and lost. The interesting battles could in the front row though as Joe Bullock, Nathan Mossop and Liam Harrison go toe-to-toe with Scott Law, James Feather and Brendon Rawlins and with many a game played against each other now, they’re know who on each other could prove a pivotal one come Sunday afternoon.

THE COACHES:

Keighley Cougars Assistant Coach Adam Mitchell: “On the evening, the little things weren’t going our way and Toulouse was clinical in punishing our mistakes.

“Conceding three quick tries early on means we started trying to chase the game rather than knocking sets out and building pressure.

“From trying to get back into the game with that forced or miracle pass, we gave them a platform and a lot of ball to play with and no team can defend for 80% of the game and expect to get a result.

“For me, they took advantage of our errors and attitude and the preparation was excellent which makes the performance even more annoying.

“Blow-out scores can happen in sport. It doesn’t make it any easier to take, trust me. We’re all hurting by the performance but we’ll dust ourselves off and put it right.”

Barrow Raiders Head Coach Paul Crarey: “We were pleased with the performance because the conditions were horrific, it poured down from minute one. We moved the ball around a bit, didn’t make a lot of errors and to score 62 points was pretty good. We just wanted to perform after the disappointment of London the week before.

“I watched Keighley’s game against Toulouse and there were some fantastic individual tries. Not many teams can go 80 and 90 metres in this division and Toulouse can do that. Once they were free-flowing and got so many points up, it was inevitable they would cut loose.

“We’re not reading too much into that, we’re looking at the wounded animal, a lot of soul-searching will go on after that. We expect a reaction, Keighley is a very difficult place to go, they’re a very good team and a blow-out happens to us all at some stage.

“We’ve got to be very, very wary that we’re not complacent. Certainly the coaching staff won’t be because all our games against Keighley have been real tight. They’ve got some quality players so we’re expecting a backlash.”

THE REFEREE:

The whistle blower for this Sunday’s Kingstone Press League One fixture at Cougar Park is Warren Turley from Leigh. Warren’s last appointment for a Cougars game, came in pre-season ahead of the 2015 season as he was the man in the middle for the Cougars 86-0 friendly defeat away at the Leigh Centurions.

PREDICTION:

The Cougars will be hurting more than ever after the manner of defeat in Toulouse with Marchy set to ring the changes throughout his seventeen. The Cougars are at there most dangerous when there backs are up against the wall and fixtures against Barrow in the past have been nail biters with lots of late drama, expect the same this Sunday at Cougar Park. – KEIGHLEY BY 6.



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