ANDY Litherland ran in two tries as Barrow Raiders completed an unbeaten pre-season campaign by seeing off Kingstone Press League One rivals Keighley Cougars 48-14 in Sunday's friendly at Craven Park.

The Raiders were missing a number of players, with Martin Aspinwall suffering from illness, and Tom Walker and Brett Carter both injured, but were still able to rack up a comfortable victory thanks to a flying start in the first half.

Jamie Dallimore had been a doubt due to illness as well, but he showed little sign of suffering too much with another inspiring performance in the halves which was capped with converting all seven of his attempts at goal.

It took just five minutes for the home side to break the deadlock on the back of three consecutive penalties conceded by Keighley, with Litherland the man getting the try after snaring a superb one-handed pass off the ground from Ryan Fieldhouse and Dallimore converting.

Some intense tackling from the Raiders forced several handling errors from their opponents as well and one of these was punished in the 12th minute when Joe Bullock powered through the Cougars defence to dot down, with Dallimore again converting.

It got worse for Keighley four minutes later when stand-off Dallimore was quickest to react to a loose ball and raced through for the Raiders' third try – along with adding the extras – as the away side's players stood static seemingly expecting someone else to make a tackle.

Jarrad Stack then smashed his way through for a try of his own in the 23rd minute after another knock-on had led to a scrum for Barrow 10 metres out and Dan Abram got the fifth try of the half two minutes before half time, sneaking over from close range after Fieldhouse had been held up short.

A knock-on by Bullock from the restart after the break allowed Keighley field position from which Josh Casey scored a try out wide to get them on the board on 42 minutes, but the centre was then sin-binned following a string of penalties on the Cougars line.

Centre Litherland grabbed his second of the match while the visitors were a man down, although Keighley were able to manage another during that 10-minute period when Adam Ryder managed to find a way through in the corner.

There would be no catching Barrow though and Tom Loxam finished a superb counter-attack which started with Dan Abram ripping the ball from a Keighley attacker inside his own 20 metres and racing away.

Keighley did manage a late flourish though, with Callum Dunne scoring a try and Matty Beharrell converting, but the Raiders had the final say when Litherland sent Shane Toal sprinting clear to score and Brad Marwood booting the two points to wrap up a convincing win.

Barrow Raiders: Ryan Fieldhouse; Shane Toal, Declan Hulme, Andy Litherland, Luke Cresswell; Jamie Dallimore, Brad Marwood; Joe Bullock, Nathan Mossop, Ollie Wilkes, Danny Morrow, Jarrad Stack, Bradd Crellin. Interchange: Ethan Kelly, Brad Brennan, James Duerden, Dan Toal, Ryan Johnston, Dan Abram, Andrew Dawson, Tom Loxam.

Keighley Cougars: Harry Aaronson; Callum Dunne, Danny Lawton, Rikki Sheriffe, Andy Gabriel; Will Milner, Matty Beharrell; Scott Law, James Feather, Neil Cherryholme, Josh Lynam, Fran Welsh, Mike Emmett. Interchange: Nathan Kitson, Adam Ryder, Brad Nicholson, Sean Hesketh, Lewis Davey, Sean Kelly, Emmerson Whittel, Josh Casey.

Referee: John McMullen.