Sunday's Coming - Keighley

There’s really only one angle to any preview of a game with Keighley this season - and that’s the long shadow cast by the tragic loss of Danny Jones. Notwithstanding the heartbreaking impact on his family, friends, team-mates and the wider RL family, there’s little we can write here that’s not been said already. Indeed, it’s almost impossible to comprehend or articulate the impact that such a loss can have on a club and its community.

But Hornets fans can empathise more than many. When we lost our own Karl Marriott (28) and RL legend Roy Powell (33) to heart attacks weeks apart in 1998, the club was shaken to its roots. While both incidents occured around training sessions, that shock of senseless loss; of strong, fit men cut down in their prime; of keystones removed, resonates just as cruelly.

To the Keighley branch of our RL Family, the small comfort we can offer is that, whilst it doesn’t feel remotely possible that time will smooth the jagged edges off this painful loss, slowly, imperceptibly it will. Week by week, game by game. Danny Jones - like Karl & Roy - won’t be forgotten as long as fans like us carry them with us as part of our clubs’ legacy.

As it is, Sunday sees Keighley and Hornets contest the top of the division. The game of the day, it promises all the things that make us love this incredible sport of ours: drama, passion, intensity  - and, yes, emotion. So get down there and soak it all up - for even in the darkest of times, Rugby League can be life-affirming stuff.