By Jon Tuxworth | Sunshine Coast Daily

Sunshine Coast Stingrays are confident of improving further in 2009 after coming off their best-ever Premier Rugby season.

After three straight wooden spoons littered with blowout losses, the Stingrays earnt the respect of the rugby world with some fine performances in 2008.

But coach Glenn Panoho, preparing for his second year at the helm, isn’t about to let his squad hang their hat on that.

“The playing roster is looking pretty good, and the theme for the year is ‘time to move forward’,” he said. “We had a good year last year in terms of results and the players are now used to the style of football I play.

“The great thing is we don’t need to go looking for a great deal of players. We’re looking for two or three that want to be a part of us, and Morgan (marquee player Morgan Turinui) has been helping us with that.

“Hopefully we’ll make the next step and be knocking on the door of the finals.”

The Stingrays will have plenty of opportunities to impress, with the upcoming season to be one of the longest in history.

“It’s going to be a long season; it starts mid-February and goes right through until September,” Panoho said. “They’ve combined the Country competition into a State Cup competition now, where there’s five rounds before Premier Rugby starts, and games within Premier Rugby count toward that State Cup.

“With the (proposed) expansion of the premier competition, they’re looking at bringing teams in from Cairns, maybe Townsville and possibly Darling Downs.

“This is all mooted for the future, so they’re giving those regions exposure to premier rugby sides.”

Turinui, who re-signed with the Queensland Reds for a further two seasons recently, is hopeful of adding to the three matches he played for the Stingrays in 2008.

“Because of the extended season, there’ll probably be eight or nine games that I can play,” Turinui said.

The Wallabies centre also applauded the Queensland Reds’ signing of All Black Daniel Braid for the coming Super 14 season.

“He’s probably the most important signing by an Australian rugby team in a decade,” he praised. “The huge hole we had with the retirement of David Croft, we’ve been able to fill with probably the second best number seven in New Zealand.

“He hasn’t chosen his club team yet, so I’ll have to have a chat to him when the pre-season starts.”