Well greatest [isinging [/iever, no because two years out of three does not compare to the great players we signed who were here for a while such as Hanley.

One of the greatest [iplayers[/i to sign for us? Without a doubt IMO. I agree with Bilko that had he been here this year we would have won the three home games but that would have just been delaying the inevitable in that when he left at the end of this season, the inadequacies of our team and coach would have exposed a year later.

Maybe he would have given IL and Noble the breathing space to get to 2010 (when the big contracts are up) with a few honourable defeats in the play offs placating the fans but what I think he did was save Nobles job for this season by dragging a poorly coached team to over achieve.

My view is we did best when Barrett was here when Noble's game plan was ditched by the players when they were chasing games and with Barrett on board they could catch up and overhaul teams like Wakey, Cas and Hudds. Without him we can't.

He was basically the difference between us and those sides and that was enough toi get us into the play offs and two wins in each playoff series while he was here.

Dave

Even more worrying is Noble's record v Stains.
9 games,
Aggregate score 132-290,
1 win, 1 draw and 7 losses (the win and draw only coming at the end of the season when saints had all but secured league leadership).

Every Wigan coach of past had 2 objectives:
Win the Challenge Cup,
Beat St Helens.
Noble has failed on both of these time and again at Wigan.

I feel it has to be now or never for Noble. Beat Saints on Maunday Thursday or walk.

Agreed Barrett was able to create the closest thing we had to a plan B and now we're so one dimensional its unreal.

Either that or id even settle for a record defeat against st helens if i knew it would get rid of parker!!!! Extreme I know but thats how much i want him gone now....hes making a joke of our great club!!

Never ever

Means to an ends surely.

What would you rather;

Hammering of saints....get rid of nobby....rescue the season....and by the time we go to knowsley road actually have a serious chance of redemption and have our season back on track.

OR

Somehow jam a victory over saints, nobby is suddenly safe again because of the euphoria, but our season slides from disaster to disaster, plus the inevitable hammering against saints at least once or twice before the end of the season anyway!?!?!

Short term loss long term gain. If someone could guarentee me that if we got beat by a certain score nobby would be gone id even turn out over easter in a saints scarf!!

If the Gleeson deal goes through, it shows, that IL is still fully behind Noble.

Lets hope it doesnt.....a further player with an alleged chequered past is all we need!!

Past, in one of the papers he stated he has been off the drink all season.

Or, its exactly what we need and Noble has got his way in relation to squad improvement.

Our win % in each of his seasons is:

2006 - 61.1%
2007 - 55.6%
2008 - 48.1%
2009 - 30.0%

Appalling

For a side that spends upto the cap limit and that he's been in charge of for 3 years that is embarrasing.

I've made excuses about him getting his own players in and being judged then but he's pretty much got that now.

Fielden, Pryce, Mathers, Roberts, Riddell etc are all his buys and have all been letdowns(although in the case of the last 2 thats got time to turn round).

We need a coach that will take the pressure off the lads and give them some confidence to play........especially the young kids.

Agreed.

We've pretty much come full circle and at times look as clueless as we did in the early part of 2006.

Didn't Brian say the other week that Wigan were heading in the right direction?

Where's that Brian?

Nob is too busy making omlettes with humpty dumpty

I think there is some inherent problem at your club and maybe its a case of the players thinking they are bigger than the club or the coach.
When you have employed some of the best quality coaches over the last 5 years or so and you have not had any success then it appears to be more of a problem with the club/players than the actual coaches you have employed.

No we have not.

We employed 1 coach in the last 5 years who looked like turning this club round and sadly he is no longer with us.

The reason he succeeded in my opinion personality and respect, we have not had a coach with that for the last 5 years.

So you do not consider that Raper,Millward and now Noble were not the best available at the time.Millward was the most successful during his time at Saints and Noble's record is probably the best in the Super League era.
There is something wrong based upon that.

As half-time last night was the halfway point of the regular season, time for an update - Noble's win % for SL regular round games:

2006 - 61% (season was 43%)
2007 - 56%
2008 - 48%
2009 - 43%

So we're basically on a par with our "flirting with relegation" season at the moment, out of the top 8 having generally played 2 more games than the majority of teams - great.

Update after the Dire game.

2006 - 61% (season was 43%)
2007 - 56%
2008 - 48%
2009 - 40%

I know WHO the cabbage is.

Lets not throw the cabbage out with humpty dumptys bath water eh?

then who'll be [ion shift[/i to [imake the omelette[/i?