SUPREME North Yorkshire snooker coach Steve Prest today revealed how he threw down a challenge to new world champion Shaun Murphy in his bid to reach the top.

Prest, from Harrogate, masterminded Murphy's astonishing triumph in the Embassy World Championship which climaxed with a sensational 18-16 victory over Matthew Stevens in the final at Sheffield on Monday night.

"Everything I chucked at him in coaching, and I chucked some stuff at him, he accepted," said Prest, resident coach at Harrogate's Manhattan Snooker Club.

"I told him that he would have to knuckle down to it if he was to succeed and do what I told him and he rose to the challenge."

It was Murphy's father Tom who introduced his son to Prest about five years ago as a practice partner when Prest was still playing on the professional circuit.

They became friends and nine months ago Murphy, shortly after moving from Northamptonshire to Rotherham to be with his fiance Clare, asked Prest to become his coach.

"He felt he wasn't progressing as much as he should have been," said Prest.

"I made some adjustments to his cueing action, which was already good and as all the top players have been saying is the straightest and best they've ever seen.

"I also helped him improve his safety play. Last season it was nave, but he sure showed at Sheffield how good it now is. There's no better arena to prove it than at the Crucible

"All the hard work was done before we got to the Crucible. In Sheffield it was a case of getting him to relax, but he has the confidence of great cue action to play his shots and the self-belief he has at this level is something you can't buy.

"You can never tell people what to do at this level, all you can do is suggest things. And during the Sheffield fortnight all I did with him was tweak one or two elements."

Murphy certainly did it the hard way to become the first player since Terry Griffiths in 1979 to have gone through the qualifying rounds and wrested the world title.

His regular coaching sessions with Prest have alternated between the Manhattan Club and a snooker club at Ecclesfield.

Prest took up coaching nine years ago thanks to Chris Williamson, owner of the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds. Steve couldn't afford the £500 or so expense, but Williamson paid the fees.

"I've a lot to thank him for," he admitted.

And it was Griffiths who took the coaching exam in Llanelli, with Prest being one of only eight to pass out of a hundred pros.

"I can't put into words how I feel. I'm thrilled for Shaun more than myself," added Prest, who is off to Thailand soon to run a coaching course for World Snooker.

He has a band of up-and-coming youngsters under his coaching wing at the Manhattan Club, including York teenager Steve Gregson, who he rates as highly promising.

Updated: 10:39 Wednesday, May 04, 2005