TONIGHT week I hope everyone will give a real Cougar welcome to Nathan Antonik who flew in from Sydney yesterday.

Despite spending 25 hours travelling around the world he was keen to get into action and he should be on the bench for tonight's game against Swinton Lions. That sort of commitment to the game shows real character.

After playing at the top level in Australia he should be able to make a real difference down here.

I WAS more than a bit disappointed by our performance at Wakefield, there just wasn't the will to win you need to beat the top sides.

We gave away the ball far too often, and you just cannot do that against any team in this division, and certainly not against the leading club in the league.

We also missed 37 one-on-one tackles and that is just not acceptable.

They had 15 full time players in the squad, which gives them a chance to train during the day. They were stronger than us, but we should have been able to win if we played 'smarter' football.

The players have got to start believing they can win against the top outfits, and until we get that attitude right we will have a lot of work to do.

ONE of the most important things the game needs to sort out now is just when we will be playing our next season.

If we are going back to winter rugby, and that seems very likely, we need to know within the next couple of weeks so that we can start make plans for a pre-season training schedule.

From the club's point of view a return to winter seems to be the only sensible option. We have 2,000 hard line supporters, but where have the other 3,000 gone who were supporting the Cougars a couple of years ago.

A return to the winter game might encourage them to come back, and we could even pick up a few Bulls supporters who have nothing to do in the winter months -- and the way this summer has gone we might be able to tell the difference!

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.