AFTER the Wigan game in June we decided to make a change.

I think Lee Briers lost a bit of confidence with his goalkicking and we addressed it by handing over the marksmanship to Jon Roper.

Jon is a recognised goalkicker and so too is Ian Knott. However, I just wanted Knotty to concentrate on his general form and to continue with the general form he had been showing. He is probably the best kicker in the club, or at least the longest kicker anyway.

Goalkicking is like anything, it has to be finely tuned. It is like a golf swing - if you don't continually practice and practice you hook or slice the ball.

And I was concerned that Lee wasn't putting enough time into his goalkicking and it cost us the game against Wigan.

Jon did really well when he took over and I was happy for him to keep the role. But he had a slight thigh strain in his right leg so we decided to give the kicking duties back to Lee again.

At the weekend he obviously showed he has been doing some practice because he landed eight out of eight. There were some really good kicks from him. He struck the ball well and that is the secret. I was really pleased for him because it is an integral part of his game and something he has to continually do. His '40-20' kicking is good but he has to work on his short kicking and goalkicking now. And it has to be regular practice, every day. It's not something you can phase in and out of.

I can remember going to play a game at Wigan when I was coaching Castleford. We walked out on the pitch before the game and one of my players, Martin Ketteridge, was bemused why they had covered areas of the pitch in sand. And I said it was funny how it was all on the sides of the field. It was where Frano Botica practiced his goalkicking - 25 times a side, every day. He was probably one of the most prolific kickers in the game. That kept him in the Wigan side for many years and is something which young players have to be taught.

Lee sometimes thinks that his natural talents will get him through. Unfortunately, natural talent only gets you so far. Practice doesn't make perfect, only perfect practice makes perfect!

On a different note, I see that Halifax prop Paul Broadbent has signed up with Gateshead Thunder for next season. This is good news for the game over here.

It's no good for new franchise clubs like Gateshead just bringing in a boat-load of Australians. London took on British players Karle Hammond and Rob Smyth last year and now Gateshead have Broadbent.

This is the way it has to happen. It has to evolve in these places. Maybe clubs should send some of their younger and fringe players to these franchises so that there is more English input than there currently is. If every club gave a couple of players to each new franchise then that would be a better way to develop the game over here.

I did speak to Broadbent myself this year with a view to signing him. I've been saying since the start of the season that we were short of a prop in the squad - and that was escalated by Mark Hilton being out for a long time and is still out. But we couldn't meet terms with Broadbent. His expectations of what he should be paid were a little bit different to mine so I just wished him all the best and parted company.

I also spoke to his current teammate at Halifax, Martin Moana who has decided to stay with the Blue Sox. We decided to withdraw from the negotiations with him because they were protracting out too long. There was a time frame within the negotiating period. He extended beyond that so I said we were withdrawing our offer.

That's the way we're going to conduct business. It has to be more professional. The players tend to want to dictate and, fair enough, they're an important part of the game but, at the end of the day, there is a wage I'm prepared to pay and it has to be a very, very special player for me to go beyond that.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.