AFTER hitting “rock bottom” last year, Rylands Sharks are aiming to move back through the rugby league pyramid “the right way."

The club were forced to resign from the National Conference League last season for financial reasons – that after starting the season superbly and leading Division Three for a long spell.

However, the club always maintained they would be back in 2018 and they will compete in the North West Men’s League.

Joint head coach Rob Campbell, who will pick the team alongside Liam Lawton, says they could not stand by and let the club die.

“It’s tough to start at the bottom again, but I think we can really challenge to motor up the leagues with the things we have in place,” he told the Guardian.

“We hit rock bottom last year, but I had no doubt we’d come back and that we wouldn’t die.

“There’s guys here that are just desperate to play for this club.

“I’ve been at Rylands for 20 years, you fall in love with the place.

“It’s the same with Liam, we’re both really happy with how it’s going.”

Despite having to start from scratch, Campbell says it presents he and Lawton with a big opportunity to set the club up for the future.

However, Campbell made it clear that the duo are expecting instant success.

“The main thing for us is that we want to do it the right way. We want to earn our place back up the leagues,” he said.

“The league have put us in Division Five and, to be honest, we expect to win it.

“Our goal is to keep building and improving to work our way through the leagues.

“With the players that we’ve come, we think we can do well. We’ve got quite a few contacts in the sport so we’re quite lucky.

“I used to coach the under 18s, so a few of them have stayed on and Liam coached the older lads in the second team.

“We didn’t want what happened last year to happen, but we’ve got an opportunity now to start from scratch.

“We’ve got the chance to put things in place not just to improve things for this team, but for generations of Rylands players.”

When the club resigned from the National Conference League last year, many of their key players joined other amateur clubs around the town.

The likes of Troy Brophy and James Jones went to Woolston Rovers, while half-back Craig Harris has joined Burtonwood.

However, Campbell says he is happy with the new squad at his and Lawton’s disposal but admits attracting players was initially tough.

“We were struggling at first, too many promises from players that said they were going to turn up weren’t kept,” he said.

“Since Christmas, though, we’ve always had between 17 and 21 at training, which we’re really happy with but we want to keep building on that.

“One or two have stuck around, but the majority of last year’s first team have gone.

“A lot of the second team lads, who could have played in the Conference for the first team in my opinion, have stuck around though.

“We’ve got a good core of players there and they are a good bunch.

“They all get on and they’re ready to rock.”

Campbell also talked about how his joint-role with Lawton will work and he believes it is a recipe for success.

“It’s an equal partnership. We’re quite similar in a lot of ways, but it’s nice to be alongside someone who has some different ideas,” he said.

“Through coaching the under 18s a lot, I’m used to kind of getting my own way.

“With Liam, we discuss everything and we have a clear plan of where we want to go.”

Rylands open their season by welcoming North West Tigers to Gorsey Lane on Saturday, kick off 2.30pm.