Indeed they did but it was very crude. Wingers like Lesley are not the norm.

Or perhaps McNamara is a true coaching guru....

World Champions is not really worth much though is it when one looks closer. Nobody thinks the team that wins it is the best team in the world. Well apart from Gary Hethrington.

Perhaps the Aussies don't take it as seriously, but Wests wanted to win that game, but if you wont have WCC then how about SL Champs then?

If everything was great why did he leave AJ? Maybe like a Harry Rednapp he realised the club/team had peaked and would be going downwards so he jumped ship before it sank.

So ok,how do you explain the GF wins he coached Bradford to along with numerous CC wins. It seems suddenly none of these wins are worth much. If Noble was as bad a coach as people make out with such little knowledge then there is no way he could of been so successful with Bradford. The fact is he proved himself to be able to coach a winning team. Wether you like his style or not is another matter. Personally i prefer defence orientated games rather than high risk Millward style.

Everything wasn't great. He didn't get on with some directors at Bradford.

That would be it. That and a souring relationship with the bosses @ the Bulls.

Its pointless comparing us to when Noble was coaching at Bradford. They played very, very boring but had the biggest team in history.

They often relied on field position off the back of penaltys and barged over the line. We havn't got the players to play like that!

I am not actually very anti-Noble. I think he has a lot of strong points but we really need to employ a coach with some attacking nouse to help him out.

You are equating coaching ability with winning trophies. The true measure of a coach is how much he gets out of the players available to him.

If I accept your premise then Ian Millward is a similarly outstanding coach and you would have to agree with that.

I think Brian Smith is a great coach. Neil Henry one of the top half dozen in the world but by your method of assessment both are abject failures.

IMO Brian Noble was in the right place at the right time and he was astute enough to not tamper with it but the groundwork of Brian Smith/Matthew Elliott and a then little known skills coach called Mick Potter laid the foundations. Without those foundations what would Noble have achieved? Carl Jennings the conditioner played a huge part too.

We can all agree on the team for next week and how ludicrous Noble's team selection was. Some saw it before we had even kicked a ball and then nearly everyone can see it now.

But we can rant about it till we're blue in the face but at the end of the day only one man can change that side around. Brian Noble.

Let's just see if he does, I predict he wont. I think he will drop Mathers and keep Coley in the side. I think we will line up like this:

Roberts
Phelps
Goulding
Carmont
Richards
Smith
Leuluai
Fielden
Riddell
Feka
Hock
Bailey
Lockers

-----------------------------------
Hansen
Coley
O'carroll
Tomkins (Joel)


With Brian Noble's previous record I don't think much will change.

Something else we agree on. I'm getting worried.

Agree with this, in his confort zone Noble was happy to pick up the ball and run with it, he changed nothing about the Bulls style of play and ethos. Lets not forgett Noble cut his teeth in this environment, and learned his trade through this ethos, i do not think personally if you want to be a polished rounded end product you can serve your aprentiship in one environmet, if you do you start to produce clones of your teachers who are only exposed to 1 set of methods.

When faced with a different team of different style players that do not necissarily fit this ethos and take him out of this comfort zone I feel at the moment it is being proven that he has some major limitations. Hopefully the next few weeks will disprove this theory,

Where did i do that?

I said if Noble was as BAD a coach as people are making out he could not of won so many things year on year. Im not saying he is a coaching guru or another John Monie but he is not a bad coach either.

Yourself and AJ defended Noble on the basis of his trophy cabinet. Even now you mention winning things.

Many people who climb to the top of tree are extremely lucky rather than talented.

You are talking as though Noble inherited Elliots squad and just sat back and did nothing.

I would like a Bulls fan to come on here and list the players Noble signed for Bradford and the starting line up in Elliots last year and the starting line up in Nobles last full season. Noble signed and coached his own players,Elliots team was long gone when Bradford hit there peak.

I did not defend him solely on winning things. I said bad coaches dont win things year on year.

You compare Nobles time at Bradford to climbing a tree. Noble was not lucky was he? He did not sit back and let Elliots team win things. He built a very successful team that at its peak looked nothing like the team Elliot left him with.

I may be wrong but in a year or so McNamarra has virtually changed much of the Bulls line up around. I think Bradford will be very good in 2009 and will play a different style of RL to the past. So from what he was given to where he will take them that could Mcnamarra a very impressive coach.

Some coaches are player dependent to a much greater extent than others. As an example, 2 centres like Iro / Newlove were far more important to Ian Millward being successful than anything to do with his coaching.

Great coaches adapt to the players they hve and cange their tactics to get the maximum out of those players. I do not think Millward nor Noble fit that category.

But the system, ethos and style of play was not, and that is the crucial thing. Noble simply identified players who would fill the void left by the players leaving the club.

This is a fact Noble discussed at length every potential signing with Carl Jennings to see if they could be conditioned physically to suit the system in place. Now a coach may discuss a player with the conditioner, but would he give them the final say on if he should sign them or not? I doubt it.

Thankfully time as it always does caught up with this method players became quicker and a physical match for the Bulls and the legacy of this continues today.

I expect this year to be career defineing for both Noble and McNammra, both have had time to stamp there authority on there respective teams and make them there own.

McNammara as a player was a pretty skillfull forward and clever tactician, i think we may well see this transmit to his Bradford team in 09 and they could be a real force.

Your not listening are you?

I have never stated Brian Noble is some kind of coaching guru as you seem to suggest.

Ive have merely pointed out that his track record blows the theory out of the water that he is a bad coach. Do you honestly think a bad coach could stay at one club for around 8 years however long he was at the Bulls and repeatedly win things even though the squad had completely changed from the start of his reign to the end?

The facts are Noble had to rebuild the squad at Bradford and sign new players he did not inherit Elliots team and sit back and do nothing.

He was compliant in Caisley's policy of not investing in youth development but rather spending money on established players. Not a gret CV for a Wigan coach is it?

So you say he was not a coching guru but he won lots of trophies. Which makes him lucky rather than good does it not?

I said on ere on sat that sam should have played on sun.

What I fail to see is, how would playing Sam Tomkins be rushing him into the side? He's been on the fringes for two years now, he's what, 20? How old were McGuire and Burrows when they got into the Leeds side and established themselves? How old was Andy Farrell? How old was Shaun Edwards? The list could go on! Fact is... if you're good enough, you're old enough.

I bet if we put down on paper players younger than him who have made thier sl debut you would get a very good team a new topic mite get stated i think.