By buying in a load of Aussies. Not what I'd call strong foundations.

Madge may not have done any better than Nobby did in 2006, but I'm confident he'd have moved us on in the 3 subsequent years, which Brian failed to do, and I also believe Trent would have stayed.

The whole academy system and training facilities were overhauled by Noble when he came to Wigan, something we should be very grateful for and for which we are now reaping the rewards.

As for coach of the years I suspect it will be between Maguire, Smith and Potter. Either of the last two could conceivably do the double (as could Bluey at Leeds)

The foundations are in the youth system he has put into place not the cobbled together team that are in SL. He is setting up a good youth system and is trying to get a new training facility set up. As Brain has said in another post its what he set up with the youth that is paying off for us now.

If Noble gets the award i sense this is a blatant attempt by the RFL to "butter him up " to keep him in the game.
There are a lot of old heads in the crusaders team who when upto speed and reasonably match fit could compete and pick off the odd win here and there and in some cases get lucky agaisnt the bigger teams.

Magurie has taken the same squad and turned it from mediocre to a very consistant outfit and has also blooded the young players also.

Bare also in mind that the Wigan team was Nobles squad and it speaks volumes how much more we could have gotten out of the players but also shows a "make do attitude" from Noble IMO

I'm not sure that being better than Millward qualfies you as Coach of the Year. I also have questions in my mind about Noble being responsible for our youth system. If he was, he certainly didn't make use of it. One of our problems while he was a coach was that older players always seemed to get picked first, which irritated the young ones and made the rest confident of selection whatever their form.

If Noble wins it this year, he will obviously be being judged on 2010 rather than his time at Wigan. But it would hardly be natural justice, given that the team he struggled to get a decent performance out of has hardly given a poor performance since he left.

Just what I was thinking.
Of course Noble has assembled a decent team at Crusaders. Most of the previous players at Bridgend had come up from Championship One and couldn't cope in Super League. This enabled Noble to sign many very good Aussies. They are still only ninth in the table despite this pedigree. They have lacked consistency, a characteristic of Wigan last season.
I think Maguire is nailed on with Smith a long long way behind. Depends on Wembley and the Grand Final for the runner up.

I think the overall award may depend on this.

If Leeds go on to win the Grand Final, you'd have to make McLennan a very serious contender given that Leeds have been average by their own standards for most of the season, and would have to have shown a remarkable turn-around between then and now. It's a similar story with Smith and Potter. Both of those coaches (and McLennan too) could conceivably still win both major awards. If they manage that, Maguire's week-by-week achievements would (probably rightly) be overlooked. Even if the two major awards were shared - say Saints in the CC, Wire in the GF - it would still look a bit odd if Maguire won it ahead of both the main trophy-winners.

In retrospect, it's clearly a bit previous for us to speculate on this at present.

Is anybody actually bothered?

I bet Maguire's not.

Walton Swift team coach

wont be your coach it has no windows

He'll sayhe's not but he will be.

Dear oh dear. Firstly, I didn't say that being better than Millward does indeed quality you. With twists like that, you should be a barrister.

Secondly, coach of the [sizeYEAR[/size means that he should indeed be judged on 2010, not the past.

Its called coach of the year and its based on what the coach has done with the resources they have not simply who is the most talented

Although saying that he has improved us immensely going from a 6th place to 1st and from having 30pts last year to 40 with three games left