DARRELL Griffin is already proving to be a revelation in Cougars colours even if the man himself won’t admit it.

Head coach Craig Lingard is seeing the benefits of securing the signature of his marquee signing and has openly praised Griffin’s experience, leadership qualities and professionalism since arriving at Cougar Park a fortnight ago.

And with the win in the North-East marking the forward’s 400th career appearance, and first try for Keighley, the former England international shows no signs of slowing down as he enters the twilight of his career.

“I’m clearly the senior player here!” joked the 36-year old.

“Old father time is starting to catch-up with me and as long as I don’t embarrass myself or make a fool of myself then I’ll keep playing as long as I possibly can.

“Keighley as a club fits in though with exactly where I am in my career and I’m really enjoying my time with the club and I’m really happy with the decision I’ve made.

“I’ll be more than happy to sit down with Craig and the club towards the back end of the year to discuss both mine and the club’s options and I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the standard.

“Since I’ve come to the club though, the boys have been really welcoming to me and it’s a real family club with a group of young lads in the dressing room but I’m fitting in well and hopefully we can go on to have a great year together.

“I was glad to have scored on my 400th career appearance which makes me feel even older but I’ve always enjoyed my rugby league and it’s no different here at Keighley.”

A solid debut in defeat at Oldham was backed up with an impressive performance in the victory over Newcastle as he begins to get back into the swing of things following a brief spell outside of the game with Rugby Union outfit Morley.

But with this marking the first time in Darrell’s long career he has played outside of the top two divisions, the prop has confessed to doing some digging to prepare himself for the rest of the season ahead.

“I was thrown in at the deep end a little at Oldham, I only had around a half hour on the field on the Thursday evening and the team run on Saturday morning. I was surprised to find out I was playing but I had to get my game time in somewhere.

“I didn’t know much about the league but I have a good friend who plays at York and I spoke to him to do my research and asked him a lot of questions when the opportunity to join Keighley arose.

“I am really impressed by the standard in this division which is no disrespect to League One as I’ve not seen much of the league.

“But in the two games I’ve played so far, they’ve been really competitive and of a high standard and I’ve never played in Super League sides with completion rates as high as what we had at Newcastle which is a credit to us as we throw the ball about and don’t playing a boring brand of Rugby League.

“I know there are some teams who struggle down the bottom of the league but both games so far have been enjoyable.

“The performance at Newcastle was a massive improvement on Oldham and we worked on the areas we needed to improve on and went up there and did a job on them and there won’t be too many teams who do that.”