DEWSBURY boss Andy Kelly is not interested in doing old mate Richard Agar a favour this weekend - but was hoping to do him a service all the same.

Kelly's strugglers need to get a result against Barrow on Sunday on the last weekend of the regular season to give Agar's York City Knights the chance to pip the Raiders for the sole promotion spot in LHF Healthplan National League Two, should they win at Chorley.

But rather than aim to help out Agar, who was his player/assistant coach at Featherstone last year, Kelly said: "I would say it's more like doing ourselves a favour.

"We want to finish on a high. We're looking for something very positive. The supporters have been brilliant with us and we would like to reward them with a result in the last game.

"For the existing squad this is also an important game with regards to their futures. There are one or two who have been borderline (as regards contracts for next season) so they will want to impress."

Agar has other links with Dewsbury, of course, having been a star player when they won the old Northern Ford Premiership under Kelly's brother Neil, while several Knights players are also former Rams, who in turn boast ex-York players Adam Thaler and Ian Kirke.

A victory for Dewsbury this Sunday would be a major shock given their losing form and second-from-bottom spot - but Kelly thought the chances of an upset were good.

"It's our opportunity to be involved in a big game, which we've not had all season, so we'll treat it that way," he said.

"We're not intending to take it lightly. We want to finish the season with a win and we're treating it very seriously.

"Since our appearance at York (a 64-6 hammering on August 22), we've had two encouraging performances, challenging over the 80 minutes but without getting the result. Hopefully we can come out of this game with something.

"We set ourselves a target in these last three games to win at least one and this is our last opportunity."

Kelly was, in the meantime, planning a bigger assault on NL2 next season. "We've started talking to one or two players and we'll sign and seal as we go and hopefully build a squad that can challenge next year," he said.

"We've looked at trying to save whatever funds we had this year and be quite frugal so we've more resources to throw at next season."

Updated: 10:44 Friday, September 10, 2004