Well, it has certainly been a quiet week in the life of Oldham Rugby League Club!

The last piece I did was about how I had to make the difficult decision to change the head coach and how that search had begun.

I suppose by now most of you will know what the outcome of that search was. I also think that it is fair to say I could have won a fair few quid at the bookies had I been able to put a bet on as to who the next incumbent was going to be.

‘Little old Oldham’ have only gone and pulled off a major coup by engaging the services of the most successful head coach in Super League history – yes, you read that right.

That man is Brian McDermott who has a pedigree second to none and whose remit is quite simple – keep us in the Championship.

Now, nobody is naive enough to think that by having a new coach the players just turn up and become world beaters, but I do know, and I 100 per cent know this, this squad is so much better than it has been showing for the past few months.

So, what happens is we start a process. That process in stage one was to get somebody in who could get the best out of the players. Job done in that regard.

I racked my brains to think who could come in and make a difference and I challenge anybody to come up with anybody better.

I am totally confident that Brian will turn things around. Of course, in some ways the appointment is the easy bit.

The next stage is for Brian to start to embed his ethos and to get the group of players to understand what they are capable of. We have 10 matches in which we can turn this season around and it starts this Sunday when we are at home to Bradford Bulls.

It is also important for people to understand that Mr Mac is not going to perform miracles in one week – he needs at least two!

Seriously though, even after the sessions so far this week, you can see a change in the players’ mindset and that is the biggest hurdle to overcome.

I have been inundated by people asking how I managed to pull it off as nobody saw that appointment coming. Put quite simply, I decided I had nothing to lose by aiming as high as possible and here we are! There is maybe a lesson in there somewhere.

We have known each other for a long time – in fact right back to when I was England manager and he was an England player and I have always had the utmost respect for him since then for the way he has handled himself, both as a player and as a coach.

He is the first to admit he is not your run-of-the-mill character, but he gets results and regardless of what happens from here you have to say his courage in accepting this role underlines everything about him as a man.

It would have been far too easy for him not to risk anything in terms of his reputation by taking on this job.

Conversely, as I was driving to the meeting with him and going through things in my head, that was the one thing I suspected might be an attraction to him – the challenge. He is a winner and loves to prove people wrong.

From an Oldham perspective nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see him add the ‘Great Escape’ to his impressive list of achievements, not only from a selfish point of view but because he absolutely deserves it for taking this on. Buckle yourself in, it’s going to be some ride!