PENRITH officials last night stopped short of giving coach Matthew Elliott a guarantee he would be at the club next season.
The 42-20 loss to the Warriors ended the Panthers' season on a low and although chairman Barry Walsh repeated there had been no discussions about replacing Elliott, he turned down the opportunity to match the assurance of Parramatta CEO Denis Fitzgerald that Michael Hagan would definitely be at that club in 2009.
Asked in the tunnel at Mt Smart Stadium whether he could completely guarantee Elliott's position, Walsh said: "What I'm saying to you is we've never even discussed it.
"I don't even know if there's a problem so until something like that comes up . . . it's not on our agenda. He's got a year to go on his contract.
" As far as I'm concerned, he's our coach. That's all I can say."
Elliott - who has one year left on a three-season deal - said he accepted his share of the blame for a second consecutive failure to make the finals and also hinted that others in the club had allowed themselves to be distracted by politics.
"As for our performances not being at the level they should be, I accept my level of responsibility for that," Elliott said.
"When you're in a process of change . . . it's not a painless process . . . and that distraction has diverted people's attention away from what they really need to do. And that's put their time and effort into preparing for football games.
"If our improvement from last year to this year is replicated (in 2009), we'll be pretty happy."
CEO Mick Leary revealed the Panthers would make budget cuts next year.
"We're going to cut back on a lot of unnecessary things we do on game day and to promote game day," he said. "Ads, banners . . . we'll cut $500,000. That's what we've got to do."
Leary added: "Petero Civoniceva has undoubtedly been the buy of the season."
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24272985-5001023,00.html
