Beckett was the club's inaugural coach when Old Bar entered the premier league in 2003. He stepped down after 2004 although he has remained involved with the Barbarians as vice president, while he has also coached junior teams.

"I have a bit more time now - my family's pretty well grown up now, so I thought I'd put my hand up for the job,'' Beckett explained.

He firmly believes the Barbarians have the talent to trouble the leading sides in the competition. However, the club has experienced lean times in recent years.

"It was a pretty poor year for all the Manning clubs with us all missing out on the semi-finals,'' Beckett said.

He added that coaches can only do so much. It's up to the players to have the right attitude and turn up for training sessions.

Beckett agrees that the Manning will always battle to handle three premier league teams. But he is sure there's enough players here to handle two. Old Bar and Taree will be the only Manning representatives in the league in 2015 now that Wingham has been relegated.

"Look at Port - there are four or five clubs up there and there's two at Kempsey,'' he pointed out.

"It will be interesting to see what difference it makes at the Great Lakes now that Tuncurry-Forster's back.''

Last season premiers Wallis Lake were the only premier league club from the Great Lakes.

Beckett believes the majority of Old Bar's 2014 roster will be back in 2015.

"And hopefully we might pick up a couple of new players,'' he added.

He will call a meeting of players in January to outline his plans for the new campaign. At this stage training will start the first week of February.

Beckett also hopes to organise some trials against clubs from his old home town of Newcastle.

"It comes around pretty quickly,'' he said.