Well that was a slightly frustrating afternoon of Rugby League. Despite being the better team for large periods of the game Keighley found themselves almost snatching it from us late on. From the opening whistle, it was evident that Bradford were the more dominant force on the field. We gained easy yards and our speedy ruck got us on the front foot and in decent field position. With some quick passes and powerful running they carved out numerous scoring opportunities for Hallas, Taufua and a great bit of individual skill from McGowan (he's been a great pick up). I felt that we were slightly disjointed in the halves with Gaskell missing. Any news on why he was absent today?
I felt that our discipline was poor across the board today. Keighley were piggybacked out of their own 20 numerous times on the back of us being unable to sort out our discipline. I felt that we were very lucky to keep 13 men on the field at certain points during the game. No real complaints about the referee. He didn't really let the game flow until the second half.
The first half was frustratingly stop/start mainly down to our poor discipline. When we eventually stopped giving away a penalty every set we starved Keighley of any decent field position. In the second half they didn't get near our line until there was 13 mins to go. We controlled the middle section of the game and marched out to a 26-6 lead. We fell asleep towards the end and let the Cougars back into it. Despite the adversity, we persisted, refusing to let the Cougars steal the victory from us. It would have been another embarrassing afternoon if we would have let that one slip. The idiot on the PA would have gone into cardiac arrest if they'd have snatched a win.
One think that did impress me was our goal line defence in the first half. Keighley were given 3 repeat sets in our 10 but couldn't break through. Davies was an absolute workhorse in defence and made some great stops. Taufua also put on a massive hit down the wing to stop a Cougars attack late in the game. He also gained us some fantastic yards in attack.
Into the quarter finals we go and we face Dec Patton's Swinton Lions at home in a couple of weeks.
