ST HELENS coach Ian Millward, the man with the Midas touch, today began planning the club's next trophy bid.

Saints confirmed their status as big-game specialists with a thrilling 19-18 Grand Final victory over Bradford Bulls to take the Tetley's Super League crown back to Knowsley Road for the fourth time in seven years.

They may have left it late, with Sean Long's match-winning drop goal coming with less than a minute left, but the records show St Helens have won six of the seven finals they have been involved in since the game went to summer in 1995.

While Bradford succumbed to their great rivals for the fifth successive final, Saints can celebrate the fact they have won half the 14 trophies up for grabs since the advent of Super League.

And Millward, who has been in charge for the last three seasons and has five years left on his contract, insists he is hungry for more success.

"I want to be back next year," he said.

"I'd be disappointed if we aren't. I want to win the world club and I want to be in Cardiff (for the 2003 Challenge Cup final). I also want to coach the Lancashire Origin team and win that."

Saints' epic victory over the 2001 champions earned them a crack at Australian champions Sydney Roosters and a chance to regain the World Club Championship title they held two years ago after a win over Brisbane Broncos.

That mouth-watering clash with Brad Fittler's men is likely to take place in February as an opener to Super League VIII.

More immediately, Millward's men have a date with New Zealand, who will visit Knowsley Road on Friday for the second match of their tour, though the champions look certain to be under-strength.

Full-back Paul Wellens will today have x-rays on a suspected fractured cheekbone and Millward will hold a roll call tomorrow on the rest of his walking wounded.

Long revealed that he played through the pain barrier at Old Trafford.

"If you gave me a choice now, I wouldn't want to play New Zealand," he said.

"But we'll do it. We'll use it to thank the fans. We've had lock-outs at the last two games and there'll be another on Friday."

"The big reward is the world club, we really like that. We'll start planning that probably late this week because it will have a big bearing on what we do pre-season wise."

Millward admitted Saturday's win brought him the biggest satisfaction of his coaching career.

The 2002 Grand Final will live long in the memory of the record 61,138 crowd for the way it swung first one way and then the next and built to a tremendous climax in which six drop-goal attempts missed the target until Long broke the deadlock in stoppage time.

Even then, the drama did not end, with Bradford furiously claiming a penalty for a voluntary tackle when Saints skipper Chris Joynt appeared to succumb too easily to a challenge from Paul Deacon.

Both referee Russell Smith and RFL technical executive Stuart Cummings dismissed the claims but the controversy still threatens to take the shine off Millward's finest hour.

"I've got to watch I don't say it's the best trophy win under me because I don't want to take anything away from the guys who have won some great trophies with us, guys like Kevin Iro, Freddie Tuilagi, Apollo Perellini," he said.

"But for me as coach, it's probably our best victory because we toughed it out. It was probably an un-St Helens-like victory. It showed another side to us.

"Two tries right after half-time usually breaks most teams' backs but the way we handled it was incredible."