Drive for the future

The Cougar 'TeamBuilder' scratch card is at the heart of plans to develop the strongest squad in the First Division and push for Super League status ready for the new millennium. All profits from the card will go into a special fund to allow coach Lee Crooks to pick up the top players.

"All we need is 500 fans to sell 10 tickets each week and we will raise £100,000 a year. It sounds easy, but now we need people to give their support," said director Allan Clarkson.

The fund raising scheme was launched at a special fans night on Tuesday, when the coach also committed himself to the club for another season.

"Now we can really look to the future, and I am trying to get players to commit to the Cougars for another season. We will be talking about extending their contracts over the next few weeks," Crooks said.

Already Christian Tyrer has signed an 18month contract and Jason Laurence has signed until Christmas with the option to extend the deal for the 1999 season.

"So far we have had a lot of help from Castleford and Bradford who have allowed us to have players on loan, and we may bring in other loan players later in the season.

"We have a strong squad capable of beating anyone, but if we need to bring in other players we will do what is required," he said.

The club's first target is to reach the division's Top 5 by they end of the season and book a place in rugby league's 'European Cup' competition.

The drive into the coming seasons was emphasised at Tuesday night's meeting.

Keighley's Victoria Hall was packed with standing room only as over 600 fans packed in to re-live glory moments of recent years when the club won the Third Division, the Second Division title, a Premiership Trophy and made a second visit to Old Trafford.

But the final message was "stop looking back -- and plan for the future."

The new era starts on Sunday when players and fans travel to Hull KR's Craven Cottage ground.

Crooks expects to have his strongest squad on the field, despite injuries to Jason Ramshaw, Chris Robinson and brothers Steve and Mark Campbell.

The expected team is: Foster, Wray, McDonald, Laurence, Lee, Tyrer, Longo, Fogerty, Hansen, Anderson, Sapatu and Larder. With subs: Owen, Summerill, Stephenson and a New Zealand trialist.

The trialist, who could join Cougars full time, is Alex Smit, who is a big prop-forward and has been playing for Tonnens in France. He first made an impression when playing for New Zealand in the last student World Cup.

"It is certainly going to be a tough task at Hull KR, but the team we have now is good enough to beat anyone in the game.

"We just need to make sure we control the ball well and we can bring back the points, Lee Crooks said.

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