So you think Wakefield's squad was better than ours last season?

Depends how you look at it. I agree with the four semi-finals but three 3rd place finishes? Sounds better than it actually was. However, I do wish him well at Crusaders. Just glad he's gone.

No I am not "a typical example of our fans being used to the best in the late 80s and early 90s and expecting similar things now."

I am simply someone who recognised that what Noble's sides were serving up was not good enough with respect to the competition it has been playing in over the last three years. My opinion on Noble's tenure has got nothing to do with how the side played in the past.

Anyone could see how poor the team played at times in absolute terms not benchmarked against any past Wigan team.



Quality performances were few and far between and to say we were inconsistent is an understatement. Winning one week and not just losing the next but getting beaten by obviously poor sides was as frustrating at it was inexplicable. Losing is not a problem if the effort in there but the manner of far too many losses was not acceptable.

As to no one doing much better with this team we will soon see what it is capable of under different coaches because it is virtually unchanged for 2010.

Noble had three years to get a team together and playing as he wanted and yet for three years we put in three similar standard seasons that were sub-standard.

And for the record I don't expect miracles from the side just because we have a new coach for the very reason it is virtually the same side as 2009 but I do expect some improvement because I believe Maguire will address several issues Noble never got to grips with.

I can not see why anyone considers the 2007 to 2009 seasons as reasons to give Noble a warm welcome.

Dave

Crusaders are an absolute shambles at the moment, even if they do get a load of good players on board in the next couple of weeks they are going to struggle early on in the year. Shame on the RFL for allowing them to continue when there are clubs with a decent set-up waiting for a place.

Maybe its more to do with the way he conducted himself, the passion and pride he always represented the Wigan club with, the fact that he (along with IL) restored alot of integrity to the club ater DW/Millward, the work he did at all levels of the club with regards the setup than something purely based on results.

But stick to your agenda Dave, you normally do.

He left the club in a much better state than when he took over. That is worth a warm welcome if nothing else!

I can see both points of view though id mibbe side with the view that during 07,08 and 09 the league form was 2nd classs and we were , as said before treated to quite a lot of pathetic performances from a group of players punching below their weight. Il certainly give him a round of applause but not for the tripe he served us in 60% of games he managed us..

What i will say is that the ends to the three aforementioned seasons were outstanding and i wont forget those dramatic playoff match wins at Bradford, Hull, Perpignan and Hull KR

Could not agree more, Nobby should be given a good rousing reception IMO. He did indeed save us from the brink under Agent Millward and I think it is churlish to have a pop now that he has gone. I think we need to keep everything in perspective here. The regime under MM appears to be developing well, but we have yet to put "boot to ball" so lets see how it goes. I hope that MM is everything that we have been led to believe he is in terms of getting the best out of the players but lets see the first 6 games or so and then start to analyse both the regime and the players.

He tried his best, and he was committed to the cause. He just didn't seem to have the scope to evolve his coaching methods. He stuck with what worked at Bradford, and we didn't have the size or quality to do it. He tried it with GB and it failed there too.

Good luck to the guy, I bare no ill will towards him.

On the subject of former coaches, who would you give a standing ovation to if they were announced prior to a Wigan game.

For me it would be Graham Lowe, John Monie (Both for obvious reasons), Graeme West, Frank Endacott. After that I'm struggling.

I could not agree more and part of that is saving us from relegation needs to be kept in perspective as well. He could not live off that forever and it was no excuse for the performance over the next three years IMO.



I agree. There are no guarantees that MM will be a success but the number of posts on this board that go on about the change in attitude in the camp, the new approach to training we hear about and so on highlight that people think there has been a revolution in the off season which unfortunately for Noble highlights his weaknesses.

Dave

Given the problem he has building a squad should we lend him a few players?

If so who?

Fringe players to give experience , Stu Howarth, Ben Davies, Josh Vievers, Sam Gee, Neil Holland and John Walker on one year deals.

Some of these are I believe earmarked for loan deals.

Short term (dual registration) Liam Farrell, Darrel Goulding, Shaun Ainscough, Mickey McIlorum.

Personally I believe we should give Noble some respect when he comes back with the Crusaders, for the job he did at Wigan, a mild reception though, lets not go too overboard.

As for loan players, Pryce & Goulding probably, and maybe a couple of the reserves. But I think we should let MM monitor the players development, before we farm them out.

the one thing i will always praise Noble for is his integrity. in a game tarnished with ego's he acted superbly through a situation that was badly managed by IL. We were unfortunate not to be in the grand final last season and when you look at the embarassing situation surrounding Noble and his future, how he managed to get what he did out of the team is astounding. I agree that he should be given a round of applause for what he achieved. He may not have taken us back to the top but he came pretty dam close with a team that to be honest isn't good enough.
we are not in the eighties where we had a right to win everything. we live in an era when 4 or 5 teams are as good if not better than us. our time will come again and i feel we are very close but lets get out of this mentality we have a right to win and expect to challenge because we are wigan. all teams around us are developing as well and we need to do more. i honestly feel we will be the next leeds, maybe in the next 2-3 seasons but lets support what we have, this nucleus of young talent and give it time to develop into a home grown championship winning side.

How can you be certain it was all of IL's doing?

Murphy, Hughes and millward.

I'll never understand the argument that if you're not happy with the way Wigan are playing that's because you're living in the past and think we have a right to win everything.

That really is the kind of statement trolls come out with.

As fans, we're surely experienced enough to recognise that, during the three and a half years of Brian Noble's tenure, the Wigan team performed poorly for most of the time. That was obvious to me regardless of the results (which weren't that good anyway if we're honest - we got to loads of semis under him, but were embarrassingly trashed in all of them, so in truth we never really got near a final, let alone won one).

As for his being mistreated, maybe he was and maybe he wasn't. We'll never really know, but I'm glad we've got the outcome we have. I'd be far less happy about 2010 if Nobby and his crowd were still in charge.

By all means be polite to him on his return, but let's also keep some perspective about what really matters. For Wigan to continue to exist at their current level, they had to improve significantly. That's all there was to it.

Stuart Raper won us our last trophy with side expected to lose to Saints with such mega stars as Julian O'niel in it yet he is rarely mentioned on these boards. Granted Noble was our coach for the last three and a half seasons and Raper has been gone for some time but I just don't get the deference some fans have for Nobby. And I think deference is the right word to use as that is how I see it.

He saved us from relegation but that was in 2006 and we have had no success under him at all since then and the obvious revolution off the pitch that is going on points to the fact things were not run that well off-field either.

He just hasn't been that good a coach for Wigan so as previously mentioned there is no need to be disrespectful but I don't see any need to welcome him as some sort of former coaching great of ours because he just wasn't.

Dave

There was a lot more to the "he saved us from relegation" argument as well.
not least of which was the fact that we (at the very least) found a loophole in the Salary Cap and brought in Dobson and Fielden.
We went from having no money for one coach to spend resulting in shopping at Lidl / aldi to having loads of the stuff to splash out and go to Harrods. Some people then wonder why we got a better standard of signing!

where did i say that. i never said that if we are not happy with the way we play we are living in the past. i stated that in the eighties we were head and shoulders above everyone and were expected to win everything. As for trolling, why would i do that on the board of a club i have followed and supported for 25 years. Get a grip.

i am simply pointing out that we are not good enough at the moment. the team isn't good enough and other teams are developing around as well. we need to develop to higher standard and quicker to make us a championship winning side.

the time was right for nobby to go, and although we haven't won anything look at the team he had when he arrived and the team hes left us with. great youngsters mixed with some very good experienced players that could quite easily have made the grand final last season if not for some dubious decision and a little bit of bad luck. we were not trashed in all our semis as you put it. the catalans one was embarrasing and our first semi against leeds we were out played, but apart from a twenty minute spell against warrington i felt we were as good as the team we were playing against and didn't get the rub of the green. games that could have gone either way.

no one can argue the intergrity he handled himself with. the media reports and comments made by IL suggested that Nobby was left dangling over his future. none of us know for sure but the evidence appeared to be there. Overall i am reasonably happy with the last three years and i'm extremely excited about what MM can do with the foundations that Noble has put in place and for that i am thankful.

So predictable.

To put it another way, I am not going to bow down to Noble like he is a God but I will applaud him because of the time he spent building up this club and putting everything into it to keep us from relegation.

If your that sad and bitter and to argue he does not deserve a warm welcome as one of our former coaches, be my guest. If it was Millward I would agree, Noble did more good than harm, thats enough for me to want to give him a warm reception.

*waits for Dave to either post back with tripe, or go hiding*

I don't have an issue with the bulk of your post, but the bit I've highlighted is definitely rewriting history.

As for Nobby's integrity. All we saw were occasional comments by him in the press that he couldn't be kept waiting for ever. We saw very few comments from Wigan until right near the end (though I've been told that they were in contact with him personally throughout the whole affair). I don't know how we can read anything into the 'one side of the story' press coverage that we got, let alone conclude that Nobby behaved well and Wigan behaved badly. It's also worth reminding ourselves that several times during his reign at Wigan, Nobby was having talks with other clubs.

I'm not saying he's not a man of integrity, but I think integrity is often in the eye of the beholder when it comes to professional sport.

How often do you need to applaud him for saving us from relegation? Talk about living in the past. He did it, it was great and that was step one out of the way to taking us back to the top but there we stopped progressing.



I am not "sad and bitter" I can just recognise Noble for what he is which is a not a particularly good coach who actually did very little while here for us both on and off the pitch. In fact I'd go are far as saying some of his practices such as sticking to his first 17 and ignoring the rest of the squad until forced into playing them was downright damaging. Why applaud that?





Hide form what?

Dave