Brown coached Makinson at Super League club St Helens and recently caught up with him in Newcastle.

Makinson won the Golden Boot award this year and the outside back, who is contracted to St Helens until the end of 2021, has been open about his desire to one day play in the NRL.

However Brown says the flyer wants to be in the NRL for the 2020 season and already has several Australian clubs interested in him.

"Tommy is definitely playing with St Helens next year. Tommy's desire is to come out at the end of next year," Brown told newcastleknights.com.au.

"We've just invested quite heavily in the outside backs, so it's not a position at this stage we're looking at. Would we be interested in Tommy if we were looking at those positions?

"Certainly, he's a terrific player but he's got four or five clubs already interested in him."

St Helens CEO Mike Rush told League Weekly newspaper in the UK  last month that his club would not be releasing Makinson from his contract to head down under.

"He’s contracted with us until the end of 2021 and like with any player we can’t control what he does out of contract," Rush said.

"Obviously the club would want Tommy to stay right throughout his career, it would be great if he was another Paul Wellens, another Jonny Lomax who played their career at the one club. We’d be made up with that.

"But I can’t tell you that he won’t go, because that’s his decision isn’t it. But what I can say is that he will be here until the end of his contract because this club doesn’t release players. We want to win things and to do that you need the best players."