Oxford gave pacesetters Keighley Cougars a good test before three late tries gave the hosts a 44-14 win in Kingstone Press League One on Sunday.

Cougars, who stay second in the table, led only 28-14 with 15 minutes left against a spirited Oxford display, but those late scores gave them victory by a flattering margin.

The game was interrupted for five minutes after lightning appeared to strike the Danny Jones Stand.

The visitors got off to a blistering start when from the kick-off, Kyle Danns broke a James Feather tackle and raced to the halfway line before offloading to Sean Morris who raced in underneath the posts, with Nathan Kitson adding the extras.

Keighley replied when a neat offload gave Andy Gabriel a free run into the right hand corner.

In a scrappy first half, Cougars took the lead for the first time after 33 minutes when following a scrum, Rikki Sheriffe cut across the field and got the pass to Paul White who dived over.

Oxford’s defence went to sleep minutes before the interval to allow Paul March to scoot over from two metres out.

However, the visitors went into the break only 16-10 down after Aaron Jones-Bishop acrobatically crossed after great work by the Doncaster loan pair of Jack Walton and Josh Kittrick Conditions in the second half worsened with glorious sunshine turning into pouring rain and this had an effect on the game, making handling very difficult.

Oxford put the kick-off out on the full and from the penalty which followed, Paul Handforth’s clever reverse pass to Josh Lynam allowed the second row to walk through and dive over.

Handforth added the extras to make it 22-10.

Then after Jones-Bishop spilled a kick, David March threw the dummy to Rikki Sheriffe, who took the ball behind the line to score, with Handforth again adding the conversion.

Conditions worsened further and Marcus Brooker pounced on Jesse Sheriffe’s spill for the Oxford’s only score of the second half to bring the score back to 28-14.

On resumption after the thunderstorm, Keighley finally managed to get a stranglehold on the match and score three unanswered tries.

Ash Lindsay squeezed through the tightest of gaps to get over next to the posts.

Hamish Barnes marked his return with a try as he collected another Handforth pass and raced 30 metres to dive over.

Handforth converted both tries.

And on the hooter, White grabbed his second as he drove over in the corner.