By Margie McDonald
September 25, 2006 RICKY Stuart's management team will put his case to become the next Sharks head coach to the club's board at a meeting tonight.
Talks between Stuart's manager John Fordham and Sharks president Barry Pierce continued by telephone yesterday after a face-to-face meeting on Saturday between the three men.
"Talks are progressing, I think, at a satisfactory rate," Fordham said last night.
"I will speak to Barry again tomorrow and we will hopefully be in a position at some stage tomorrow to put a final document to the board for them to consider."
Today marks four weeks since Stuart was sacked as coach of Sydney Roosters despite taking the club to a premiership in 2002 and then grand finals in the following two years. He also took New South Wales to a State of Origin series win in 2005 in his maiden year as Blues coach.
Stuart is the current Australia coach and would like the matter wrapped up this week as the first Tri-Nations series game against New Zealand is in Auckland on October 14.
The final Kangaroos team will be named a week from today after next Sunday night's grand final.
The Sharks sacked coach Stuart Raper last Friday after a private consultancy group completed a review of the 2006 season.
After winning eight of nine games and holding third spot mid-year, the Sharks lost their last 10 matches and plunged to 10th and missed the finals.
But the future of assistant coaches at both clubs are also among things to be negotiated between the Sharks and Stuart.
Roosters first-grade assistant to Stuart, Shane Flanagan, was also sacked, while Raper's assistant at the Sharks, Adrian Lam, was reportedly given a verbal agreement that if Raper left he would be next in line as head coach.
Part of Stuart's bid to coach the Sharks includes bringing Flanagan with him.
The club will already have to pay out the last year of Raper's contract, reportedly close to $200,000, with Lam certain to be paid out as well.
His contract is not due to expire until the end of 2007.
The Sharks are the only NRL side without a coach for next year.
The Roosters appointed former Sharks coach Chris Anderson a week ago to bring the number of clubs with a new coach for 2007 to six.
The Sharks will be the seventh
