Quote SCR-SeaDiver="SCR-SeaDiver"As I understand it Noble took Veivers to Bradford and to Wigan with him - so he must rate Veivers.
As I remember it,the Wigan fans didn't care for him as he failed to give youngsters their opportunity.Noble nearly returned to Bradford during their financial crisis last year,and do the dirty on Potter,but it failed to happen.
He did of course make the then world record signing with Fielden.'"
This is a stick that some Wigan fans used to beat Noble with. It is not really that cut and dried though. Some criticised him (and still do in some cases) for in their words "not giving Sam Tomkins a run in the team and picking Tim Smith instead". This despite the fact that Sam had made as many appearances as Smith at the point when Smith got injured in 2009, having only made his debut in the previous season. Whilst Noble did have his favourites who got picked every week and his favourite scapegoats including Kev Brown (whose confidence was wrecked and then left) and Darrell Goulding (who came back a better player when given a chance by Maguire after a loan spell with yourselves) who always got dropped. This annoyed many fans but he did steady the ship which was what we desperately needed at the time and got us to a lot of Semi Finals. He just couldn't take us any further which is why we replaced him with Maguire, who although he won us trophies was not much better in terms of squad rotation and giving youngsters a chance, as he played his strongest 17 almost every game as he wanted to win trophies and build his reputation (which then got him his NRL job). We now have a coach in Shaun Wane who does give youngsters a good number of games but is often pilloried by some of our fans when we lose a match (rare though that has been so far in his tenure) due to having a weaker team with youngsters in.
If you got Noble as coach your fans may be in for some frustration as he signs (for example) Paul Wellens and Paul Sykes and refuses to pick Evalds and Fages ahead of them even when form dips but you would get a team out of it that could sit comfortably in mid table rather than fighting to avoid the wooden spoon. It then just depends how long you are happy to put up with that.
The coach that is ultimately appointed will depend on what Dr Koukash, Graham Lowe and co. want and expect in terms of progression and how quickly they privately want it to occur (regardless of what is said publicly). If they want to (for example) get 7th or 8th in the league and to the last four of the Challenge Cup this year, then become regular 4th to 6th in the league for a couple of years while getting at least to the last four of the cup while they wait for big name players to take an interest. And then look to become a top 2 team, contesting and winning finals each year from 2016 onwards ie a steady upward curve getting a bit better each year until reaching the top then they will go for a coach like Noble/Kear who can do the steadying of the club and turn them from also rans into dark horses and maybe win a Challenge Cup whilst doing so and will then replace them with a big name coach in 2 or 3 years.
If they want to do the best they can this year but make the top 4 in SL from 2014 onwards and at least contest one final each season from next year on then they will appoint someone like Sheens for next year (maybe bringing in the man who will be his assistant to run things and lay the groundwork this season). They will then shout it from the rooftops to make the top level stars they are targetting take notice and to sign with the promise of working under a star coach from next season. My only concern with such a situation is that it could lead to the same situation we had when Mo Lindsay and then Whelan were regularly sacking coaches for not getting instant success and bringing in duff signings like Vaeliki who ate up the cap space to try to buy success. The instability of that era led us to the mess in 2006 that only improved when Noble arrived and got 3 years to do his job. Hopefully your chairman and those around him will not fall into the same trap once they have managed to get you competing at the top end and will have the patience to give coaches time to mould the team and win trophies.
