Keighley have reached the point of no return.

To avoid going straight back into Yorkshire Division One, they need to win their two remaining matches in SSE North One East and hope that Middlesbrough slip up.

“It is out of our hands now,” said a reflective Keighley director of rugby Graeme Sheffield, “but, as I was explaining to the committee this week, the problems started last summer.

“We didn’t have a good pre-season and we were then hit by injuries.”

Sheffield added: “The players, who are a good, honest group of lads, have learnt a lot about themselves and we have learnt a lot about our club.

“We haven’t been helped by not being able to build the gym because of the bad winter - that is now a project for the summer - but the players need to realise that they must do work on fitness outside of what we do at the club if they are to step up to this level.

“However, the players will learn from it, we will learn from it and we will continue to move forwards by having a good pre-season.”

Keighley, who host Cleckheaton on Saturday and visit already-relegated Durham City a week on Saturday, were beaten 64-12 at promotion-chasing Morley last weekend.

Sheffield said: “I wasn’t at the game but I was told that we lacked fitness in the second half.

“We only lost by two points at Cleckheaton in December but Durham City could be a banana skin as they beat Durham City 49-18 last weekend.”

Middlesbrough are at Darlington on Saturday.

Cleckheaton's 16-12 home loss to Northern, which ended their nine-game winning streak last weekend, was a hammer blow to their hopes of getting into the play-offs.

But, as president Alan Bentley said: "We will carry on pushing for them as long as it is mathematically possible.

"However, we are in a funny situation. We want to get into the play-offs but we don't want Keighley to go down as they are a derby fixture.

"We are also starting to look for a new coach to replace Dave Harrison, while we will also need a new fly half as Iain Gordon is moving to London - he is commuting from there to play for us at the moment."

Steve Worsley returns at hooker in place of Ben Thrower, who drops to the bench.

Keighley (home to Cleckheaton) from: H Titley; S Walker, B Blackwell, M Ferrazzano, A Sutcliffe; A Brown, M Phillips, R Wilkinson C Spencer, W Armitage, P Sinfield, O Sugden, R Clarke, D Iliff, J Hannah, S Inman, S Dyson, L Sugden, S Minikin.

Cleckheaton (at Keighley): R Hayden; J Wilson, L Queeley, Matt Piper, M Woodhead; I Gordon, J Bickerdike; P Turner, S Worsley, A Piper, R Piercy, G Turton, N Salama, R Piper, O Akroyd. Replacements: B Thrower, M Sergeant, C Blackburn.