WHILE Dean Laidley has confirmed that the Kangaroos’ boardwants him to continue coaching next year – and that he wants to stay in theposition – he says contract negotiations have not begun.

“We’re at the stage where the board’s ratified it and we’lljust take it forward through the negotiations and make sure that all the boxesare ticked for all parties concerned,” he said on Thursday.

“I’ve stated publicly that I really want to coach this groupof players and that hasn’t changed, but there’s still a hell of a lot of waterto go under the bridge.

“Again I just want to really reinforce – this is not aboutDean Laidley. This about the success of the Kangaroos Football Club goingforward.

“I’m not going to talk about what-ifs; let’s just take itone step at a time.”

Although Laidley said the conditions of his contract wouldnot be determined by a possible relocation of the club, he didn’t want to talkabout the effects that uncertainty over his tenure could have on dwindlingmembership numbers.

“When I was a player with a pretty successful side in the 1990swe didn’t have a big support base and unfortunately we still don’t.

“Some members this year have decided to not sign up forunknown reasons, but I can’t really comment on that sort of stuff.”

However Laidley did concede that he was glad the board had givenhim the thumbs up for next year.

“I’m so proud of the playing group and my staff in thefootball department,” he said.

“We’ve worked really hard over the last two years to turnthings around and try and get an edge in some of the things we do and we thinkwe’ve been able to do that.

“But we must be able to improve that because it’s a veryeven competition.”