THERE had been an indication previously that Warrington Wolves might be joining Leeds Rhinos, Halifax Blue Sox and Huddersfield-Sheffield Giants in going to America next January as part of a plan to develop the game there.

I have already planned the pre-season for our players and felt that to play games during 10 days in Jacksonville conflicted with what we are trying to achieve from our pre-season work.

To go to Amercia we would have to cross time zones, players' body clocks would be out of sync and it would take them one or two days to get over it.

We need a big pre-season for next year and the plans are mapped out.

We're looking to play a game around the Christmas period and immediately after that we will go into camp at Plymouth with the commandos.

The players will be having a week at the commandos' physical training camp. There will be a lot of physical work but the week will really identify the areas that we need to work on with the mental side of players' performances.

Mark Bennett, who trains the commandos for the British Army, has worked with me a few times and he has had a couple of meetings with the players, which is good, because they now know him.

Ideal

We'll come back for a few days and then go off to Lanzarote, to the Club La Santa sports complex where we spent time prior to Tetley's Bitter Super League V.

Lanzarote is good because it is only a couple of hours away and is very isolated. It will be a good opportunity for the new players to integrate within the squad very quickly. There's nothing to do there other than train, eat and sleep and is ideal preparation for us.

The Silk Cut Challenge Cup fixtures will probably start in February, as usual, and so we will be back to get ready for that. I am hoping the fixture dates will be confirmed to me quickly because we have a Testimonial match for Mark Forster to put in place.

We have also written to the Rugby Football League suggesting that they advise the countries competing in the Lincoln Financial Group World Cup that we will be willing to play them in a warm-up fixture, which would probably be in October.

That would be a good opportunity for us to throw some of our young players into action and see how they shape up.

Staying on the World Cup theme, our new signing from the Grand Final-winning Brisbane Broncos team, Kevin Campion, is goping to be representing Ireland in this year's competition. He has an Irish grandfather.

Kevin's never played for Australia or State of Origin football and so it is a good opportunity for him to play against other countries.

In terms of the new community stadium development in the town we have one more week in which the Secretary of State for the Environment has to decide if he is going to 'call in' the plans.

I asked our chairman Doug Hoyle this week if he had received any news but he hadn't. John Prescot has been out of the country, so I'm told.

But hopefully everything will progress without any hitches and although we are anxiously waiting for the 21-day 'call in' period to finish we are very optimistic and feel hopeful about the plans going through on the first call.