LEE CROOKS was named as the new Cougar coach on Wednesday - and warned his players they had a lot of hard work ahead.

The former Great Britain star, who played for Hull, Leeds and Castleford in a glittering 15-year career was given his first chance at senior level coaching after the Cougar side lost their first four league games.

He retired mid-way through last season with a knee injury and make it clear he would not be pulling on a Cougar shirt to play with the team.

"I retired as a player and now I want to throw everything into being a coach. I had confidence in my ability as a player, and now I have confidence in my ability as a coach," he said

Crooks was brought in after last weekend's humiliating 50-12 defeat by Dewsbury, but behind the scenes talks had been taking place even before that game.

Former coach John Kain was stunned by the move to replace him and told KN Sport: "I don't agree with the decision, we have had the full squad together for less than two weeks and everything is so close to clicking into gear."

However he is set to stay on with a full time post at the club in charge of the community programme and youth development.

Crooks added: "John Kain's role can be even more important to the long term future of the club than mine and I am delighted that he is stopping on."

Now he plans to propel the club up the league, but warned fans will have to be patient. "I don't have a magic wand. My first priority is to bring stability to the team and get a win under their belts by doing a lot of hard work on the training field. Hopefully we will be good enough to get a result against Leigh on Sunday."

He was due to have the players training on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday nights and Saturday morning as he introduced his own tactics.

"The more effort the players are prepared to put in on the training field the more they will get out of it."

He added that he had already made a list of players he though would be prepared to move to Keighley, but the Board of Directors have not given him an open cheque book.

"Money is a major stumbling block at the moment, but if players are needed it is up to me to identify them and then up to the board and Simon Irving on the commercial side to come up with the money."

Football director, Allan Clarkson said: "As a board we will back Lee. We have a tight budget to keep to, but we will try to find sponsors if other players are needed."

Looking forward to Sunday's game he said the players would have to pull out all the stops to win.

"Keighley may not be a Super League club but the preparation and professionalism will have to be of a Super League level.

"Just because the players are playing in the First Division doesn't mean they can sit around with a First Division attitude - they need to work to Super League level and that will become very clear to the players as soon as we meet.

"If they adopt that attitude we will gradually creep up the table. There are 26 games left in the league, so there is plenty of time to change things round."

Retired bank manager Ray Garlick has been appointed Chief Executive at the club as part of the 'restructuring' plan. He has stepped up from his role as football secretary to take control f the day-to-day running of the club.

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