Keighley Cougars 0 Leigh Centurions 36

TWO down, one to go writes Mike Hulme

Leigh Centurions closed in on their treble dream with a runaway victory in last night's Trans-Pennine Trophy final at Cougar Park.

With the NFP Minor Premiership and Trans-Pennine safely tucked away, Leigh are bang on course to make it a clean sweep of trophies.

From the moment Leigh took the lead after just 90 seconds, last night's result was never in doubt and had three disallowed tries stood, the winning margin would have been nearer 50.

The Cougars were hopelessly outclassed as Leigh turned on the style and with the game running away from them sadly began to resort to underhand tactics.

The second half degenerated into a bad tempered affair as a series of running skirmishes broke out.

Leigh's Paul Anderson and Dave Whittle were sin-binned in separate incidents along with Cougars' pair Carlos Sanchez and Jason Ramshaw while Whittle was red-carded for retaliation in the closing minutes.

But much of the quality play came from Leigh as they swept to their second piece of silverware in just four days.

Man of the match Simon Baldwin and skipper Adam Bristow carved out the first of Neil Turley's two tries almost from the kick off with the Leigh full-back having another score ruled out for a forward pass inside 10 minutes.

Baldwin was adjudged to have been tackled into touch at the corner as Leigh went to press home their advantage but they had to wait until the 20th minute for their second try. Anderson chipped through a static Cougars' defence and won the race for the touchdown and a 10-0 lead.

Andy Fairclough became the third Leigh player to have a try disallowed before the Centurions struck twice more before half time.

In a move that came straight off the training ground, Simon Svabic and Willie Swann mesmerised the Cougars before Anderson shot through on a diagonal run for his second of the night. Svabic's second of four goals made it 16-0.

By half time it was 20-0 as Swann caught Keighley napping with a quickly taken tap penalty, the scrum-half burrowing over from close in.

Keighley's second half response kept Leigh busy defensively but they never looked like breaking through and Leigh confirmed their win with three more tries in the final 13 minutes.

Liam Bretherton's chip kick brought Turley his second of the night and his 45th of the season; John Hamilton repeated the trick for Bretherton and in the closing stages Swann's clever play allowed Baldwin to cap a towering performance with a try.

Leigh: Turley; Ingram, Anderson, Fairclough, Watts; Svabic, Swann; Street, Hamilton, Whittle, Baldwin, Kendrick, Bristow. Subs: Leathem, Bradbury, Duffy, Bretherton. Attendance: 2626.