IF this season is to be his last, then Paul Handforth is targeting a glorious finale with Cougars.

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 this 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.”

Josh Lynam is fit again while Jode and Rikki Sheriffe will be ready to return in the next fortnight, so Cougars are close to having a full-strength squad.

Sonny Esslemont will come back into contention this weekend as Cougars prepare to host Oxford twice in eight days.

March said: “Sometimes when you play a side back to back, you go through the motions in one of the games.

“But it’s my job to ensure we don’t and we’ve two goals this season – to get promotion and to get to Blackpool for the iPro Sport Cup final. Our first task is the cup tie.

“As soon as we get that out of the way, we will turn our attentions to the league game.”