EXPERIENCED defender Steve Yates has no doubt that Town will be pushing for promotion again next season.

The 34-year-old will be back for another McAlpine season after he made a tremendous impression following his signing from Sheffield United.

Voted Player of the Year by his playing colleagues, the Millennium Stadium was the crowning glory for the defender whom manager Peter Jackson calls his `Mr Consistency.'

"The strength and enthusiasm is already in the squad to do well next season," said Yates, just back from a family holiday.

"We can take the experience forward from the season just gone and make it work for us next time.

"Obviously we all need a rest at the moment - me more than most! - but we will be back for pre-season in another couple of weeks or so and ready to go again."

Yates has had a fresh lease of life at the McAlpine and is delighted to have missed only 13 of 54 matches in all competitions.

"I have been very impressed with our young lads who have come out of the Academy and shown wonderful enthusiasm - different class," said the man who also made a massive impression.

"To get a whole group of players with the same work ethic, passion to win and enthusiasm is very rare indeed and we've got it here.

"I like that very much and I've been impressed not only with the ability of our younger players but with how they conduct themselves. It has been great to be involved."

Yates believes the memories from last season will all be good.

"The play-off final capped the season off because we have worked tremendously hard this year," he explained.

"We started out with basically a new team at the start of it all and we gelled pretty quickly.

"Our away performances let us down in the early part of the season but we managed to fix that and never really looked back.

"It was really disappointing not to go up automatically because everyone in the club had put so much into it, but I think we showed when we were behind against Lincoln in the play-off semi how much desire there is in this club."