This was for an hour 'the game from hell'. For 60 minutes, Keighley dealt Hornets a real lesson in enthusiasm and graft, only to see Hornets gain a bit of focus and play their way out of a potential major embarrassment.

Bang on the hour mark, had Oli Marns' interception from an appalling Paul Davidson pass stuck, what would have been at least a 19-10 lead would have been enough to see the Cougars home. But he dropped it and the story ended differently. Thank goodness.

It started in awful fashion. Three times in the opening quarter Hornets took possession from a scrum and dropped the ball before the first tackle was complete. Shoddy is too kind a word. And with latham Tawhai having a 24 carat stinker, Hornets played huge tracts of the first half pinned back on their own line. On quarter of an hour the pressure told - Keighley fullback Rushworth collecting a neat pass on a diagonal run to score.

On 20 minutes, having eventually carried the ball into the Keighley half, Hornets temporarily found the plot. Tawhai's break on half way, Davidson in support and Calland on the end of a 50 metre move to score. Woody converted and added a penalty five minutes later to edge Hornets out 8-4. But Keighley dug in, drove the ball back up the hill and - on half an hour - substitute prop Ekis stretched out a hand under the attention of three defenders to score.

With the half - and Hornets supporters' patience - draining away, diminutive Cougars' scrum half Matt Firth slammed home a drop goal to send his side in deservedly ahead by 9-8.

Just eight minutes into the second half Keighley scored again - Rushworth registering a carbon copy of his first half try. Mitchell converted and at 15-8 Hornets were in deep, deep doo-doo.

The deep cack almost became a wipe-out when Marns dropped the interception on an hour, but Hornets used their get-out-of-jail-free card wisely and started to play. The set from the resulting scrum, Hornets worked the ball wide on the right and Matt Calland found James Bunyan with just enough space to wriggle in at the corner.

... three minutes later, Brendan O'Meara took a dropped ball on half way, jinking and twisting his way through the whole of the Keighley defence before sprinting away to score a quite superb individual try that earned an operatic appreciation from the travelling support.

... three minutes later, Pachniuk backed up a good break by Smith to skirt in and score untouched y the posts.

... nine minutes later Danny Wood took Tawhai's other good pass of the afternoon, stepping through a bamboozled defence from 30 metres - and converting his own try.

In the space of twenty minutes Hornets had turned round a deficit and held a 32-15 lead. Keighley looked round wondering where the game had gone.

Right on the hooter ex-Hornet Danny Fearon capped an 'enthusiastic' afternoon with a freak try which involved half a dozen bizzarre dummies through a Hornets defence that clearly couldn't care less. Final score 21-32.

Once again, Hornets frustrated and delighted in equal measures. Bar Calland's try, the first half was simply awful. Total disrespect for posession was compounded by a nightmare afternoon from the usually reliable Latham Tawhai. He'll know that he can do much better.

The introduction of Matt Long and Wes Rogers did give Hornets more go-forward as their drives took a gradual toll on Keighley's uncompromising defence. And the introduction of Damian Ball for Paul Davidson drew ironic cheers from Hornets supporters.

But for an hour, the biggest problem was attitude. Again, a significantly less talented team completely out-enthused a Hornets side that looked low on desire. Thankfully the big scare on 60 minutes shook the cobwebs off, but it's frustrating to watch these late-shows - and it's a dangerous tactic to adopt.

But we played badly for 60 minutes and won - no thanks to Steve Presley who hammered us 10-5 in the penalty count and twice put the whistle to his lips for blatant infringements, but saw better of it with Keighley in dangerous positions.

Hally knows that we can do better. He's quoted in the press today as saying, "... our ball control was disgraceful in the first half..." (a completion rate of 30% backs that up - the only backing up on show, to be fair).

With Whitehaven, Barrow and Fev waiting for us, it's something he's going to want thoroughly sorted out.