T'Other Side: Keighley Cougars

    

Head Coach: Matt Foster

Keighley Cougars started the 2023 season with Rhys Lovegrove as head coach. He was sacked in mid-May and Jy-Mel Coleman took over as caretaker coach until  Matt Foster was appointed on July 11th.

He had spent the last ten years coaching Burleigh Bears in Australia.

In his playing career he usually appeared as a full-back or centre, starting with Doncaster in the 1994/95 season. After one season there he joined Keighley and stayed there right through until 2007 apart from a couple of seasons when he played for Sheffield Eagles.

He made 231 appearances for Keighley and scored 125 tries.

 

 

Captain: Ellis Robson

 

Ellis Robson is the Keighley captain, having signed for them after the end of the 2022 season. We guess that he must be happy to have spent the whole season with just one club.

Originally at the Warrington academy, in 2019 he made his first grade début with Rochdale on dual reg and later played Dewsbury on loan. In 2020 he started the season on dual reg at Widnes and then made his Warrington first team début against Hull Fc in September.

2021 saw him play for 4 different clubs. As well as a couple of appearances for Warrington, he played on loan at Widnes, Bradford and Salford.

Last season he played one more match for Warrington and then signed for Newcastle Thunder.

 

Loan players and dual registration

In March Keighley signed a dual registration agreement with Hull Kingston Rovers but that was terminated just two months later. As far as we can see the only two Hull KR player to appear for Keighley on dual reg were Jimmy Keinhorst and Phoenix Laulu Togagae who later also had a loan spell at Cougar Park.

There have been a huge number of comings and goings in their squad this year so instead of listing them all please refer to the squad list above which indicates the moves in and out, as far as we know them.

 

The Fev connection

We know of 47 players who have played for both Keighley and Fev. 

Terry Manning (centre) started his career at Keighley in the 1987-88 season and then made 159 appearances and scored 46 tries for Fev over the next 5 seasons.

Few players have made such a big impression in such a short career at Fev (just 5 games in 1990) as New Zealander, Aaron Palelei. He was a rumbustious prop and scored an outstanding winning try on his début against Castleford.

Owen Simpson (winger) was in the Keighley team when Fev beat them 86-18 in the Yorkshire Cup in 1989 (a new record for Fev for points in a match). Despite the drubbing that Keighley received that day, he scored two tries and impressed the Rovers hierarchy who then promptly signed him. He went on to form a tremendous partnership with Paul Newlove over the next few seasons.

Further back in time Rovers winger, JT ‘Stubs’ Morris, made his début for Rovers in 1929 and after three seasons, at a time when Fev were in the doldrums, he was sold to Keighley.