Hundreds attend funeral of rugby player Danny Jones

More than a thousand people gathered for the funeral of Keighley's Wales international Danny Jones in his home town of Halifax.

The 29-year-old stand-off died from a cardiac arrest triggered by an undiagnosed hereditary heart condition. He collapsed on the pitch during a League 1 match at London Skolars on May 3 and efforts to resuscitate him failed.

The mourners included Rugby Football League president Andrew Farrow and chairman Brian Barwick while hundreds of fans gathered outside St Mary's Church to watch the service on big screens.

His widow, Lizzie, had called for the service to be a celebration of the player's life and asked mourners to wear rugby shirts for the occasion. The pall bearers wore the green, red and white of Keighley.

Keighley captain James Feather told BBC Radio Leeds: "He would have wanted us to be smiling and happy and having a laugh and telling a joke and talking about the good times we've had.

"That's how Danny was when we went out, doing his impressions and having a laugh."

Jones won 12 Wales caps and scored over 1,000 points in 150 games over two spells with the West Yorkshire club after starting out at Halifax.

Keighley have retired his squad number six and are to rename their main stand the Danny Jones Stand in his honour.

A fundraising campaign set up by the RFL Benevolent Fund to support the couple's five-month-old twins Bobby and Phoebe has so far raised more than £150,000.