I stand corrected (said the man in the orthopedic shoes). That's when Melbourne came sniffing, after he was getting those (easy) tries. Old age is playing havoc on the mind.

Melbourne's talent scout must have been camped out in the Mississipi Showboat on the 60p a pint Thursdays and drink all you want for £17 Fridays, when they decided to go for Sibbit.

Noone was good and a lot of the time he was playing out in the centres, he was used as a utility man. His big chance was after Forshaw left in 2004 and Noone was made first choice loose forward for 2005, but then in a pre season game he got a serious eye injury. Having said that, in the back end of 2005 when we had Johns in the team I thought Noone was looking like he was really coming of age and I thought he would kick on in 2006. But for some reason Cullen seemed to lose confidence in Noone about this time.

In the early days you had people comparing him to Scully and all sorts, I never thought he would be as good as that, but I thought he could be a solid squad player, his defence was good and he had reasonably good hands as well, I still would have him at Warrington as a squad player.

But then you do have to ask the question, why did his SL career end age 25 and nobody else pick him up? He's been playing the last 5 seasons in National League. If Sibbit could stay in SL I would have expected Noone could as well because I thought Noone was better. But again with Sibbit I think he would have been worth keeping around as a squad player.

I always enjoy this retrospective reassessment of Wire fans. Back a few years ago we were all excited about what a great future we had because of guys like Sibbit, Noone, Hulse and Mark Gleeson, but we were asking why oh why do these lads never get a chance because the coaches just want pension hunting Aussies!

was Noone an England Academy Captain? I know that is not the be all and end all but I saw a lot of players with quite a lot of potential go through the books at Warrington and it is easy to say they were not good enough. If I remember correctly Noone ended up on the wing in a challenge cup semi final up against Brett Dallas. Cullen had an amazing knack of making fairly decent players look like utter rubbish ( see Andy Bracek after he was put at centre against Gidley) I am not saying that the players that we had back in the day could have been better than what we have now but if they were coached differently the gap between then an now may not look so wide.
As an example if 4 or 5 years ago players were coached to expect the offload as they do now on the shoulder of the likes of Solomona and Wood would Wedge have got as much stick. I am not comparing the two players just how the teams around them were coached.

Sal

I find it interesting that you cite Johns' appearances as being the catalyst for Noone's improvement, it was at that point I concluded that he wouldn't deliver on his early potential.

this ^ noone looked poor and ponderous running onto johns drop off passes, hence westwood being rushed back from injury for the hull play off game.

Very good point. I don't think any coach could have improved Paul Noone though.

Noone was a good servant but was average at best. He had his chance to kick on and he never did - not his fault because I don't think he was good enough. As has been noted above, if we was, he would have played at the top level for the last few years. Always gave his all though so fair play to him.

I agree with many things you say on here SC but can't here. Darren Burns was a real rock in a team who's collective ability was certainly invariable. I'll agree to an extent there. However, and with respect to Nooney (who i actually had a lot of time for), he is nowhere near the calibre of Louis Anderson I'm afraid.

Their respective career outcomes and individual paths are no fluke.

As for the team of 03', it was still possibly my most memorable year. I think for a long time we as a club were desperate to imrove but never seemed to manage it. And out of the abyss which was2002', I had to pinch myself when leaving wilderspool after that last game when realising we were going to compete in the playoffs at where else but the piedome...for the first time! The feeling was on a par with winning the CC last year for the second time. We'd finally laid to rest some dark times and it is still a period of rebuild which has ultimately contributed to where we are today. And besides some indifferent seasons like 07' and 08' (won't include 04 really as the fixture system was bad news for those smaller squads who achieved the year prior), we really are in an incredible position as a club a mere eight years on.....

Agreed. I also felt that if Noone couldn't shine off passes from Johns, he never would.

Eh? I agree it was very nice to be going to a playoff for the first time. But comparable to a back to back Cup win after thrashing Leeds? No chance.

Dean Gaskell made a hell of a lot of metres. Sadly for him and us, they were nearly all sideways.

From what I recall thinking at the time.

Gaskell-might as well have carried the linesmans flag. Never came off the touchline unless he already had the ball, if a break happened and moved infield, he would continue to support from 40 yards away on the wing. No instinct.
Noone-Slow in mind and body and physically weak-always outmuscled. I never saw the potential as I only ever saw him in the first team and he never once stood out to me.
Sibbit-Average and a bit lazy.
Gary Hulse- Tried harder than anyone and cant knock him for effort. How he ever got a debut though is beyond me. He couldnt seem to lauch a pass further than 5 metres and it took an age to run the same distance. Think the club were desperate to prove Squadbuilder wasnt a waste of money
Mark Gleeson-I actually liked him. Many a time he came off the bench and turned the game, punched well above his weight but unfortunately also alledgedly partied in a similar fashion.

Eh?

This thread has convinced me that Sally Cinnamon has an imposter posting under his name. 99.9% of the time you get an articulate and well thought out post from SC and occasionally the imposter turns up on threads like this claiming noone was as good as anderson. They also appeared on the ashes thread saying that Peter Such was a good spin bowler.

Pretty much spot on, although far too tough on Noone (imo not a bad player, but as I've said earlier, never kicked on)
Gaskell was dross at best. Just wasn't good enough at SL level
Gleeson was just an enigma. One game, his runs from dummy half were devastating, and could help turn a game, then for the next few games, he'd wander round with his thumb up his 'arris. Another ex player, who, with a bit more application, would have made it.
Hulse was just a typical player of that era, not THAT bad, but nowhere near the standard of what we've got now.

THANK GOD WE'VE MOVED ON.

I know certain posters have got issues with certain players, but, we've got a damn good squad of 25, the envy of the majority of SL. No REAL weak links in our squad, but, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, the likes of Mitchell, Blythe, Cooper etc MUST kick on this season, to prevent them going down the same career path as Noone

These kind of threads make you realise how the populist view that no young players got a chance under the old regime at Warrington, was a load of rubbish.

Plenty of Academy lads got chance after chance after chance after chance after chance in the first team.

I personally would rather have had a team of fringe reserve grade NRL players like Nat Wood, Burns and Domic, who would at least play with pride in the shirt, than have these 'local lads' who are actually not up to it.

Fair comment Sal, we had a glut of them around the 2000 and 2001 season, and from memory, not many (if any) "kicked on", despite having mentors like Langer/Gee/Nikau/Walters as well as established Super League standard players, to guide them through. Wether this is down to poor coaching/a poor regard of our youth system at the time, or just a total lack of application by the youngsters themselves.

Add to the ones already mentioned, Jamie Stenhouse, Will Cowell....I'm sure there are others if anyone wants to add to the list.
Also, around a year or so later (iirc), there was Pickersgill.

Where do we lay the blame for these player's failures. It just seems to me we had a lot of youth come through in the space of 4 or 5 years, and now, they're all playing low grade rugby. SHAME.

club shop.

In 03, expectations of winning a game at all were few and far between, where as today, going into a final against anyone I'm expecting a win. We've a tremendous squad at our disposal. And I do appreciate theres no comparison in terms of magnitude, Seb, but I personally was over the moon. It felt like winning a cup considering how barren our recent times had been ...

Therefore my elation in each case was relative to our aims and likely success's in each period in question. But I was similarly happy on both occasions....

It all comes down to ability really. On the one hand you get players like Jamie Durbin that people say "if only he'd applied himself..." but then Hulse, Gaskell etc you couldn't question their attitudes.

I think there is a level of ability that they have to have and then a certain toughness to be able to survive the SL environment which is where a lot of them fall away, compare Chris Riley to Kevin Penny for example, I don't reckon Riley looked as good a player as Penny but he survived the examination of SL whereas Penny didn't. Paul Wood again I don't think when he was coming through in 2000, people especially raved about him although he'd got a lot of tries for the academy, there were other young players who were hyped more at the time. But once Wood was in SL even as a young player he looked like he suited SL. Out of the recent crop I think you can say the same about Harrison.

not wanting to be pedantic but you're wrong.
smith took over during our relegation season of 2001 when we were only relegated on the next to last day despite only winning 2 and drawing 1 of our previous 18 games ( incidentally our biggest win was 52-10 against warrington!)
the next season in 2002 in the NFP we were unbeaten in the league winning 27 and drawing 1 of our 28 games as well as winning the grand final and the buddies cup in which we were unbeaten too,in fact our only defeat that year came in the challenge cup at doncaster.
in 2003 despite predictions for us to struggle again,smith steered us to superb victories over the then champions st helens,leeds,wigan and hull in total winning 11 out of 28 games which was more than our previous 4 seasons combined!
it was actually because of his achievements at the giants that he got the leeds job, just thought i'd correct you



good luck for the new season.

The team and everything about the club still needs to progress.Its no good having the mentality, we've won a couple of cups.That will do. Am sure after having a small taste of success,the players will strive to achieve greater success. In the coming seasons.And the club on a whole will want to keep improving in aspects of been,one of the top clubs in SL. Weather that can be done remains to be seen.

Watched our 3 lads for Leigh whenever they were on box last year. Mitchell impresses me, definitely has the desire to make it just wish he was a bit bigger. I dont see Matty Blythe as a superleague player and will be amazed if he makes it. Liked the look of McCarthy when he came in at end of season before last, but looked to have gone backwards from what I saw at Leigh last year, dont know whether it was his hairstyle doing it but appeared to have lost power/weight.
Cant make my mind up about Coops, definitely looks a miles better prospect than Pickersgill or Stevens ever did.

I remember watching Noone during the Bradford game at home in 2003 ( I think it was the one where Gaskell kept a 40/20 in play in the last minute, slipped and Naylor scored) and thinking that he wouldn't get any better.

Mr Graeme '2003 Dream Team Stand Off' Appo.