NICK Greenhall has been named the new head coach for Southend Saxons and insists the club still faces a bright future.

Southend were relegated from National Two South last season.

But Greenhall, who will be working closely alongside the club’s director of rugby Chris Green, is excited to be heading to Warners Bridge.

“I’m looking forward to working with Southend on a more regular basis and I’m really excited about it as well,” said Greenhall, 48.

“It’s not in my character to look back at things, we all need to look forward and focus on what’s ahead of us.

“In our dreams we will have a great season and win promotion at the first attempt but there are a lot of tough teams in this league so we’re going to be facing a number of very difficult games.

“But we’ll be setting ourselves targets and goals which we want to achieve and if we can meet them then we can have a good season.”

Greenhall heads to Southend having coached at North Walsham for more than 20 years.

And he will driving from Norwich to attend training sessions and matches involving the Saxons.

“I’ll be doing a lot of driving but it’s not a problem as far as I’m concerned as long as I remain excited and we keep moving forward,” said Greenhall.

“I know Chris is very excited about the link up with Seevic College and the players they’re bringing through.

“There are also some good youngsters at the club so the future looks bright and we hope to have a good season.

“We will obviously need to make a few signings to strengthen the squad but that’s being worked on now.

“And we are also going to need to make a few changes to the way we play if we are to going to be successful.”

Greenhall first worked alongside Green at the RFU at the start of their coaching careers but they have now reunited in a bid to help Southend triumph in National Three London & SE.

And Green is already working on improving his squad before the season gets underway in September.

“We have the nucleus of a good squad and we’ve kept quite a few senior players which is good news,” said Green.

“We will also be looking to bring in quite a few new players and we have some good youngsters who will be pushing to try and make the step up.

“We want to have as many options as possible and that’s what we’re working on at the moment.”