Former Wallaby Jeremy Paul is under no illusions as to the challenges he faces ahead, after signing on to co-coach the Penrith Emus in the 2016 Intrust Super Shute Shield.

In fact, those challenges are the reason he took the job.

“The best coach I ever had was Rod McQueen and he coached the Waratahs in 1995 when they belted an ACT team by 40 odd points,” he told Rugby News.

“The next year, he was the Brumbies coach and he went to Canberra because he said he could tell they had the cattle to be a successful team. Penrith are in a similar position. There is plenty of talent in Western Sydney and with a new attitude and a better work ethic, I’ve got no doubt they can be competitive.”

The former Brumbies and Wallabies hooker claimed almost every trophy possible during a 10 year playing career in Australia and continued that success after retirement, coaching the Terrigal Trojans to two Club Championships in recent years.

“For me, the foundations of a good rugby club is a strong administration that supports a well structured rugby program, that hopefully creates a happy and winning culture throughout the club.”

But after a year to forget for the Emus, Paul knows that won’t just happen overnight. The first step, he says, is to keep the regions best players playing in Penrith.

“The club has had something like 43 first graders leave in the past few years, so we need to stop that fairly quickly. If you look at the current Waratahs side, there’s 11 or so guys that came from Western Sydney so the talent is obviously here,” he said.

“Then you take a look at all the rugby league players that are on the fringes out here, particularly the ones with a rugby background.”

From there, Paul plans to build off the back of a strong pre-season starting in October, with a focus on strength and conditioning.

“Traditionally, that’s an area that Penrith have always struggled to match the more competitive clubs. The game is now suited to strong, lean players and although Penrith have always had plenty of size, it’s useless unless they are fit.”

“A lot of these guys have never had proper strength and conditioning or proper skills based training, so it’s pretty exciting to think what they’ll be capable of with some of that,” he added.

On top of that, he said he’d like to help the club improve their financial situation in an effort to support the regions juniors.

“”The U17’s won a competition this year and the U13’s and U14’s played in a final, plus the Colts made the finals as well, so the juniors are performing quite well,” he said.

“They are the future of the club, so it’s vital we keep them involved and get them into the senior club when they are ready.”

And how long will it take for Penrith to return as a competitive force?

“Short term, we need to be competitive and push to play finals. We certainly aren’t here to make up the numbers and while I won’t make a bold prediction that we will win the comp or make the finals next year, that’s what we need to be aiming for.”

Penrith will begin pre-season training in October. For more information, head to www.penrithrugby.com