Paul March is eyeing a glorious last hurrah as he prepares to bring down the curtain on his distinguished career in Cougars’ Promotion Final at Oldham on Sunday.

The player-coach and twin brother David are to retire at the end of the season and both men could feature at Whitebank Stadium as Cougars seek to make an immediate return to the Championship.

Player-boss March has been struggling with injury in recent weeks and his sibling pulled out of the side which thrashed Hemel Stags last weekend due to a hamstring strain.

But the brothers, along with the likes of Samir Tahraoui, Adam Brook and Rikki Sheriffe, are set to come back into contention as Cougars bid to topple Scott Naylor’s side.

The 36-year-old March, who played in Super League with Wakefield Wildcats and Huddersfield Giants, said: “We will see how I go this week but I’d like to think I will be involved on Sunday.

“It has been a 19-year career and if it comes down to the last game and we get promotion, which we think we deserve, it would be a great way for me to bow out.

“David is obviously hanging his boots up at the end of the year so it would nice for him too.

“It should be a good game and hopefully everyone will get behind us.

“It’s knock-out football now and something I’m excited about because I think we’ve got a squad capable of going up into the Championship.

“We’ve got a lot of big-game players in the squad, so we’re excited about what’s going to happen.

“We can tick goal number one off already, which was finishing in the top two to be in this Promotion Final game.

“Hopefully this week it will be a much bigger tick and it will be very sweet if we do get promoted.”

The good news for Cougars is that March should have plenty of options at his disposal heading into Sunday’s promotion shoot-out.

March, whose side will have a second bite at the cherry if they lose on Sunday, added: “Hopefully I will have a full squad to pick from and if I do then those seventeen players will also be playing on behalf of every member of the squad as well as the club and the supporters.

“We will see how David is in training this week but he’s certainly a big-game player.

“He showed that in last season’s League One Grand Final when he played a key role in Hunslet’s win over Oldham at Headingley.

“Injuries have hit him hard this year but we’ve seen glimpses of what he can do.

“A fit David March can play a key role in winning games, but we’ve also got Paul Handforth and Ash Lindsay fit again now after they missed parts of the season with injury.

“They have come back and started adding things to our squad, so hopefully this week the squad will be at full strength.

“We’ll pick the best team for this game and yes, there are going to be some disappointed players.

“But we’re a team, we’re a squad and we’re a club who are going to stick together and make sure we get that win.”

Meanwhile, Cougars were named League 1 Club of the Year at the Kingstone Press Championship and League 1 Awards Dinner held at the Midland Hotel, Manchester on Monday night.