Smith included a number of youngsters for the clash, handing a debut to Jordan Burke at full-back and also fielding Gareth O'Brien, Ben Currie and Brad Dwyer.

They rewarded his faith with fine displays, but it was back-rower McCarthy who earned the highest praise and staked a claim for a regular place in coming weeks.

"I thought Jordan Burke in a pressure position at full-back did exceptionally well and was pretty much faultless in what he did today," Smith said.

"Brad Dwyer keeps turning up and keeps scoring tries and Ben Currie doesn't look out of place.

"Gaz O'Brien did a good job, but the best player for me today was Tyrone McCarthy. I thought he was very good from the off. He did 80 minutes today and did very well.

"I thought we were pretty good generally. There are some aspects of our game we need to get in order and we managed to do that.

"I thought our defence was very solid today and we went about it in the right way. There were some things we weren't happy about last week and we managed to put them right. That was good for us and we'll take some confidence out of that.

"But I thought Keighley were very good. We played them at the same time last year and they are a much better team now."

Demetriou satisfied

Cougars coach Jason Demetriou could also see the progress from last year's 80-0 defeat at the Halliwell Jones Stadium at the same stage of the competition.

"From 80-0 to 44-18 is a massive improvement, although there are still areas I'd like us to be better in," said Demetriou, who rested himself due to a long-standing knee injury.

"I thought at time we were a bit silly with the ball and didn't do what we wanted to at the end of sets. But defensively I thought we were pretty good.

"They are a quality team and, if I'm honest, I wasn't really thinking about winning the game today, it was more about performance.

"I wanted us to score points so I was happy with the last 10 minutes. I thought James Hathornthwaite caused them a lot of problems down the left edge and has a massive future in the game."