AARON Nell says he can only see positives for Swindon Wildcats after being named as an assistant coach for Great Britain’s U20s side.

Nell, who is a player-coach at the Link Centre, will join up with Martin Grubb assist new U20s head coach, Slava Koulikov.

The 27-year-old, who was selected for the role after being interviewed earlier this year, claims representing his country was one of the main attractions to the position.

“An email went out to see if you were interested, I had some interviews which I thought went okay, and I was happy to get the role,” said Nell, who won five caps for Great Britain.

“You always want to represent your country, I will try to help as best as I can and I think it will help me as a coach as well.

“All of us are going to be put in different situations and I think you can learn a lot from that. We will be in a situation where we can learn a lot of things.

“The experience I’ll get is good for the Cats because it is going to be completely new to me and I’ll learn an awful lot.

“The teams we will be playing with and the coaches I will be coaching with is great for my own development and great for the Wildcats too.”

Among the Wildcats roster there are several players who could be in contention for the squad, with Ollie Stone, Kyle Smith, Renny Marr, Ben Nethersell, Jordan Kelsall and Luc Johnson all eligible.

While they have a young contingent at the Wildcats, Nell has already told his players his new role doesn’t make the selection progress any easier for his troops.

“There are some who could play and we are a young team, they’ll be looking to make that team,” he added.

“With me being their coach it won’t get them any preferential treatment and we have already talked about that.

“The head coach is the Peterborough Phantoms coach and we want the best team possible, if that means a couple of Wildcat players in there, then great.

“I’ve had a few conversations with a couple of GB guys over the last few days and we are looking forward to getting started but there is a lot of work to be done.”