GARRY Atkins will have plenty to work on when he returns to England this week after York Wasps suffered their second heavy defeat in the space of four days yesterday.

The Wasps followed up Friday's 70-8 mauling by Doncaster with a 26-2 defeat by Keighley Cougars at Huntington Stadium.

Errors by both sides and poor discipline by York were the order of the day as Keighley extended their winning run to eight matches.

The first half was evenly matched with the Cougars leading just 12-2 at the interval but they went on to dictate the second period to secure a comfortable victory.

Stand-in coach Dean Thomas, who has been in charge for the last two games while Atkins has been in America, admitted they would be working hard when Atkins returns on Thursday.

"We are very disappointed with the result. The guys are quite distraught. The first half, as with Doncaster, I thought we were in with a shout. There was no reason why we couldn't go out with the same game plan in the second half but we seemed to throw it all out the window.

"Now we need to see what we can do on Tuesday and Thursday to put things right for next Monday at Oldham," said Thomas.

In a game littered with unforced errors, which was not helped by the driving rain in the second half, the Wasps made an alarming number of mistakes.

In the first half they completed eight from 22 sets of six while in the second period that dropped to just two from 15.

They were not helped by a hefty penalty count which finished 10-3 in Keighley's favour, but Thomas refused to use that as an excuse.

He said: "Our discipline was array and that's something myself and Garry will be discussing with the lads this week. You can say x, y and z about referees but you should never put yourself in a position where a ref can punish you which we did."

The substitution of scrum-half Gareth Dobson after half an hour had a major affect on York's game plan. He took a knock to the head and was replaced by Spencer Hargrave, with Kevin Gray switching from the centre to scrum-half.

Thomas explained: "When you lose any key player the guys have to respond to the situation. Kevin Gray went in at scrum half but being moved out from the centre to that position is a bit of a shock to some people and I don't think the talk was there."

Both York prop Lea Tichener and Keighley prop Steve Hall were sent off for fighting in separate incidents towards the end of an increasingly bad-tempered match.

Thomas said he did not see the incident which led to Tichener's dismissal but Keighley coach Karl Harrison condemned both red cards.

Of Hall's sending off, the former Great Britain forward said: "It was just two front rowers having a bit of a pushing game but so what? It's part and parcel of being a front rower.

"I think the referee totally over-reacted with both sending offs. I thought he had a very very poor game."