Keighley Cougars half back Jack Miller was only gone for seven months, as he now looks to reset after a turbulent 2023.

Instrumental to their “invincible” Betfred League 1 title-winning season in 2022, Miller was frozen out at the expense of Luke Gale and Dane Chisholm at the start of their 2023 Championship campaign, leading to an acrimonious departure to Newcastle Thunder last February.

But Gale and Chisholm has both left Cougar Park, to join Wakefield and Featherstone respectively, by the end of June, with a miserable season then rounded off with relegation on the final day.

The re-signing of Miller was confirmed less than a week after Keighley had gone down, and who knows whether the season would have turned out differently with him in the ranks?

Reflecting on his own messy situation at the start of 2023, which turned out to be a harbinger of doom for what lay ahead for Cougars, Miller told the Keighley News: “To be honest, it was one of the hardest points of my career, but everybody has those, whether it be in rugby league or life.

“Everything that went off, leaving to go to Newcastle and then now coming back, it’s all shaped me into the person I am today.

“I can only come back a better person for the experience and hopefully a better rugby league player too, with a lot of life experience.”

Asked if he felt either he or the club should have handled the transfer situation differently, Miller said: “It’s water under the bridge really.

“Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, because you can get caught up in your emotions at the time and how you’re feeling and do some rash things.

“That might have been the case on my part at the start of last year and on the club’s part.

“But it’s a fresh start for me now, I said that from minute one coming back, and I’m willing to give absolutely everything again to make the club successful and get the club back to where I left it a year ago.”

And the fact Keighley have gone backwards since this time last year is a real source of frustration for Miller, who said: “That’s probably the one thing that grinds me.

“With the way the team had gone, with the year we had in 2022 and how well we’d progressed, I felt ready to kick on and take that next step with Keighley.

Keighley News: Jack Miller celebrates a try for Keighley against Doncaster during his side's 'invincible' 2022 season in League 1.Jack Miller celebrates a try for Keighley against Doncaster during his side's 'invincible' 2022 season in League 1. (Image: JT Sports Media.)

“That didn’t happen and maybe that’s stalled my progression, as it wasn’t an easy thing having to travel up to Newcastle three or four times a week from down here in Yorkshire.

“The grind of that got to me a bit, and I felt I hit a bit of a lull, but I can look forward now and kick on to try and get Keighley in the Championship for 2025, 2026 or whenever that may be, and have a proper go at the division this time.”

Realistically, Miller is eyeing up promotion at the first attempt, saying: “It’s no secret that we want to bounce straight back up and I think we’d be stupid to say otherwise.

“We’ve achieved it not so long ago, and with the foundations we’ve got in place, there’s no reason why we can’t do it again.

“A lot of personnel, on the playing and coaching side, are still here that did it in 2022, so we understand what it takes to pull off promotion.

“We’ve got the depth and talent within the squad to go up, but us players have to take responsibility, as we know what it means to the town and the club to get promoted.”

Miller does not need reminding what it means, admitting: “I am glad to be back, as it’s a place that’s close to my heart.

“Everybody knows how much it means for me to play for this club, as from the day I came in from Doncaster in October 2018, I got hooked on the place.

“After everything we went through, from a club in financial turmoil when I first arrived, to turn it round into a promotion-winning season a few years later, it’s a place that’s dear to me.

“To come back and get to do it all again now is great.”

Miller’s second debut for Cougars came in a crushing defeat to their likely League 1 title rivals Oldham on December 26, but he insisted: “It was a box-ticking exercise really, I mean how many people actually want to be there on Boxing Day?

Keighley News: It was a brutal boxing day for Charlie Graham and his Keighley team-mates against Oldham on paper, but Jack Miller insists the heavy defeat at Cougar Park was nothing to be concerned about. It was a brutal boxing day for Charlie Graham and his Keighley team-mates against Oldham on paper, but Jack Miller insists the heavy defeat at Cougar Park was nothing to be concerned about. (Image: JT Sports Media.)

“It was probably a great day out for our fans, but our head coach had only turned up two weeks earlier (because of his commitments in Australia), so we’d only just touched the surface of what we’d be doing this year.

“We were missing all three players from our starting front row due to illness and suspension, so that took a lot of punch out of the game too.

“You saw when we played Castleford in our second friendly at the start of January, the first 40 minutes of that game in particular were massively different to how we played against Oldham.

“You can just look at the Oldham game as one of those things, where you play on Boxing Day then get to go home and do what you really want, spend time with your family.”