And the new blood in Malcolm Reilly at Huddersfield and Ellery Hanley at St. Helens adds further life to the competition for next year.

Malcolm will be having to build from the ground floor up at Huddersfield and he will be good for them. I have a lot of respect for him as a coach and from his days as a player. He has a proven past record, he's very strong on discipline and work ethic.

Ellery has landed one of the plumb jobs as there is a wealth of talent at Knowsley Road. He was a great player. I have no doubts he is in the top 10 players to have played the game. He was a great competitor and he obviously knows the game.

Both will now be conscious of bringing in support people around them, particularly to help in any areas where they feel they may not be strong in.

Other changes see Shaun McRae going from St. Helens to Gateshead for next season and I think that was always going to be an Australian selection because it will be mainly Australian players at the new north east club.

I also see that Ian Millward from Illawarra has landed the Leigh job and that there are a lot of Australians who have put in for the Widnes job.

I think the governors of sport in this country though need to address the situation of English coaches. It is important that there are more of them.

John Pendlebury has done a great job this year at Halifax Blue Sox showing that English coaches can do it. But soccer has gone the same way in that there are many overseas coaches in the top jobs.

Supporters have been asking about my future. My situation in terms of next year is like this. Before I make the decision to stay I want to see everything in place with the new financial structure. I want to understand what the new company wants out of this entity.

For example, instant success is not an option at this point in time unless we've got the relevant money to support it. The salary cap is something we are going to have to address really quickly because we're restricted on the amount of money we spend on players because we're not generating enough cash.

It has been a hard year. I have enjoyed it but it has been a struggle. I had no doubt this job would be a challenge. I have never walked away from a fight in my life and I'm not going to now.

But I have to look at the situation and address things on the basis that I want to coach a team that is going to be competitve, a team that is going to fight for honours at some stage. I have no problem if that is a two or three year strategy.

However, I need some lead from the new people coming into the club on what they want to get out of the club and what assistance they are going to give the coaching staff in order to give them what they want.

I enjoy Warrington. I enjoy the people and I enjoy the players - they're my best mates! I probably spend more time with them than my family so I wouldn't do it if I wasn't enjoying it.

I want to coach. I feel I have something to offer in this area. I desperately want to stay in the game - but it has been a tough year!

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