The 13-year-old was playing in the Yorkshire Junior Challenge Cup final as one of the star players for Castleford Lock Lane's under 13s team when the life-changing tackle took place last month.

An opposition player kneed Sam in his lip during the match, at Featherstone Rovers' stadium, and the gash took twenty minutes to stop bleeding.

The alarm was further raised for his worried parents, Vicky and Stephen, both 37, when a coincidental break in his training schedule after the match showed bruises on his body were not disappearing.

Blood tests revealed the Allerton Bywater Brigshaw High School pupil was suffering from a rare form of leukaemia – which stops blood clotting – and he has spent the past few weeks having chemotherapy at the Teenage Cancer Unit in Leeds.

Dad Stephen, who was told by doctors Sam could have had a fatal bleed at any time, said: "If he hadn't played that match, we wouldn't have known so soon.

"He's had bruises when he's played before – you pick them up at training all the time.

"But because he had no training for two weeks afterwards, for first time in a year, we were able to see they weren't going. It's unreal."

Sam gave blood at his GPs' surgery and that evening an on-call doctor knocked at the family's home on Berry Lane, in Great Preston, to say something was wrong with his blood and to go straight to St James' Hospital in Leeds where a letter was waiting in A&E.

Vicky said: "We didn't know what it meant. When we got there we had to get in the lift to level eight and saw that that was the Teenage Cancer Unit."

Stephen added: "When we pressed that button in the lift, we both clocked it at the same time.

"We both looked at each other and I just thought, 'Oh my God'. It was like a brick hitting you in the face.

"When they told us it was leukaemia, it was like a buzzing in your head.

"It was like watching a film or a documentary about someone else, but we were in it. It was awful, really surreal."

Doctors diagnosed Sam with acute promyelocytic leukemia, which is a rare form of the disease, but responds well to treatment and is easily picked up if it comes back.

During his stay in hospital, Sam has received some VIP visitors to help cheer him up, including several of his idols from Castleford Tigers – players Joe Westerman, Dean Widders, Mitchell Sargent, Rangi Chase and Brent Sherwin.

Vicky said: "They were fantastic. Sam was probably at the lowest point he's been, but his face was a picture when they came. They stayed two hours and never stopped talking."

Sam also managed to leave hospital to make it to Lock Lane's end of season presentation night where he was crowned Club Man of the Year and his new friends Joe Westerman and Dean Widders also turned up to join in the celebrations.

Vicky said: "When Sam walked through the door to get his medal, the lads had all made a tunnel for him to walk through and they were shouting: 'There's only one Sam Sugden'.

"From such a negative situation, there's been such a lot of positives.

"The sport has been 100 per cent behind him, with his friends and
players supporting him. Everyone has been so nice and and so kind and all his friends from school have kept coming in – he's allowed unlimited visitors on the ward.

"I'd like to thank everyone for their support. If we had been on our own
we would quite possibly have hit rock bottom. Knowing people care has helped so much.

"We are over the crying and over the horror of the words 'cancer' and
'leukaemia' now and we are just looking forward to getting on with it and keeping him strong and holding the family together.

"Sam has the best personality to deal with this. He's had a couple of
dark moments in hospital but I think the worst thing about this is him
being stuck indoors in hospital because he's such an outdoor boy. He's always got a ball in his hands or a bike.

"He's not one to sit at a computer all day so I think it's the confinement that's got him down at times, but he's been fantastic.

"He's never winced once with all the injections. He's always been polite and never moody with the nurses or doctors. He's been a superstar."