PAUL Handforth is targeting a glorious finale with Cougars – if this season is his last.

The experienced half-back is considering retirement at the end of the campaign, which would bring an end to a distinguished career that began in Super League with Wakefield in 2000 and included spells with several Championship clubs.

The 34-year-old will not make a final decision until later this year but admitted the physical demands of playing rugby league were taking their toll.

The man known as ‘Tiger’ said: “I’m at the age where I’ve got to think ‘can my body go round again for another year?’

“I don’t know because it has been really sore the day after every game.

“We set some goals at the start of the year and my personal aims are to win as much as I can if I do bow out at the end of the season.

“That’s definitely my goal – to get Keighley promoted and win the iPro Sport Cup – but I’ve not decided for certain on retirement yet because you never say never.

“Yes, I’m feeling it more physically but there is no rush and I’ll make the decision at the end of the season. We’ll see how it goes.

“If it was down to enjoyment, I’d carry on for another 10 years.

“But it will come down to whether my body can stand up to it because it’s a tough, physical sport.

“I’ve been playing professionally in Super League and below, for 16 or 17 years now.

“There is a lot to play for this season and the lads here are all winners.

“They work 9-5 every day and then come in and train, so they make a lot of sacrifices and it’s just not me that wants to go out in style and win whatever we can. It’s the whole group.”

Handforth was prominent in the Good Friday win at Hunslet which saw Cougars bounce back from their Challenge Cup defeat at York.

Paul March’s men are now gearing up to face Oxford in back-to-back home fixtures, first in the iPro Sport Cup quarter-final on Sunday (3pm kick-off) and the league seven days later.

Handforth, who has developed a promising half-back partnership with Adam Brook, added: “It was important that we bounced back from the York defeat with a win at Hunslet.

“We had a week of looking at ourselves in the mirror and at each other as a group about where we were going wrong.

“We decided we were taking too many shortcuts and rugby league is not a game where you can take shortcuts – not one, never mind a lot, which we were doing.

“We put a few things right and will carry on doing so because we set some standards against Hunslet, certainly in that first hour.

“I think we played for 60 minutes and then we looked like a side under pressure at the end when they started coming back at us.

“But at the end of the day we got the two points and it’s nice to have that winning feeling again.”

March said of his key playmaker: “Tiger is massive for us and I thought him and Adam Brook controlled the game brilliantly at Hunslet.”

Rikki Sheriffe returns from injury on Sunday for the first time since Valentine's Day, Andy Gabriel is back after missing the past two games due to work commitments and Sonny Esslemont is recalled to the 19. There is also a call-up to the first team for Jamel Goodall after an impressive return to action with the reserves at Halifax.

Ash Lindsay, John Oakes, Charlie Martin and Matthew Bailey are all rested.