I thought that the last time we played em

You want evidence? Here's a few points then...


1. Fat/unfit players/discipline. Standards have slipped since the glory days. Tuigamala was forced to get the weight off when he came to Wigan and was a far bigger name than Feka and Riddell. The intensity of the last few rounds have brought fitness standards up but in the first half at least of the season quite a few of our players were off the pace. Is there anyone out there who will try to make a case for Wigan having a leading set-up in terms of fitness and conditioning? We used to. A lot of Wigan's success in the glory days of the 80s and 90s was down to the Wigan system, it was that back room set up and demanding coaching and the relentless quest for excellence that took players like Billy McGinty and made him a top class player, which plucked Neil Cowie from obscurity at Rochdale and turned him into one of the top props in the country. And then we have the situation with Hock....

2. Playing overseas players at the expense of home-grown players - why persist with Smith for as long as he did when it was clear that the lad has serious problems (not just with his defence, I felt sorry for him when I saw him being interviewed after a game, I am not sure that he should be exposed to the pressure of professional sport), why play Bailey when we have a host of upcoming players... which brings me on to the next point...

3. Failure to bring young players into the first team/properly develop them. Tompkins is in the dream team yet still qualified as a rookie this season. Why didn't he get more game time last season? Why are we losing a player to an NRL side who they think is good enough to play for them but we have only seen in a handful of games this season. And as for the way Ainscough has been handled... how many teams would drop their leading try scorer in the way we did.... only to then see his replacement Roberts display similar defensive frailties but less attacking prowess...

4. Tactics - did we practice any set plays in the off season (come to think of it, what did the squad do in the off season?) we still lack ideas at times
but for a big part of the season the team have been playing a boring brand of sterile 1 man rugby

But most of all I'm fed up with attending games in the first half of a season and seeing a Wigan side embarrass itself and disgrace the famous cherry and white shirt with gutless and shambolic performances by a disorganised and badly prepared team.

I'm not saying Noble has got everything wrong, far from it. For example, he persisted with Phelps (when I admit I was calling for Phelps to be dropped) and was proved right about that and has overseen Phelps development from a very ordinary player to a FB I would not swap for his illustrious (but very slow) opposite number on Saturday. Noble is a good coach (at least in the final few weeks of a season) with a good track record. But for whatever reason (and it may not be his fault) I just don't think things have worked well enough in a number of areas. We aren't where we are in terms of the team because he planned to pick this team or even because he cleverly adapted the side as the season progressed, its simply by happy accident.

Not for Hudds Or HKR it wasn't!

I could pick so many holes in your arguments it's untrue!

To be honest I have yet to see anything other than YOUR opinions, which of course your entitiled too, but to dress them up as facts when they are clearly Not.

I'm not here to change your opinion, it's obvious you've made your mind up! But don't try to justify them by making half truth statements and turning opinion into Fact when they aren't.

Nobby is not without fault, but then we all are.


I am not going to convince the Nobby doubters that he is a good coach, so I won't bother.

What I will say is this.

The SL competition is all about the last 4 weeks. This year is once again proving that. Like it or not, the start of the season counts for zip.

Nobby has coached us to Semi Finals for the last 3 seasons. IMO with the squads that we have had, that is about as good as we could have hoped for.

This season we have a very real chance of making the GF. Despite the much cited "poor start" , we are 80 mins away from ensuring the poor start is irrelevant.

This is a fact, not an opinion.

And for some it's the other way round, which is at least as questionable an attitude, if not more so given that it's Noble who has overall responsibility for conditioning, fitness, tactics, motivation, match preparation, pre-season, etc - all areas where we've been poor for most of the season.

Or are these points going to be continually ignored by those who lump all the "anti-Noble" brigade under one banner as being stubborn, thick, cowardly, etc?

I suppose we will only be able to disect the season a week on Sunday.
By then we will be able to compare ourselves with Saints & Leeds's season.

However, lets look at Huddersfield's season.

Pretty consistent throughout the first 4/5th's of the 2009 season, culminating in a 3rd Position, reached a Challenge Cup Final and looking strong contenders for a major trophy.

Froze in the Challenge Cup Final, never recovered and limped out of the playoffs without so much as a whimper.


Compare this to Wigan's 'stop/start' season, poor beginning as usual. Decent Cup run, looking our best chance of a trophy, reached the Challenge Cup Semi Final but froze in a disastrous 20 minute spell. Then recovered some form in the last quarter of the season, ended up in 6th Position, won 2 playoff games and are 80 minutes from Old Trafford.

If we win to get to OT, has our season been better than Huddersfields?
If we lose, has our season been better than Huddersfields?

My main gripe with Nobby are his and the teams attitude to games earlier in the season.

For me theres too many lacklustre cant be d performances throughout the season had we turned up to 3 or 4 more games we would have 6-8 points and finished in the top 4 quite comfortably. Looking back we played both Cas and Wakey at home in the first few games and we were terrible. Had we just turned up those days im confident we would have won. Another one that stands out is Celtic away. Terrible.

This simply has to change if we want to challenge for SL honours.

This is exactly the point. If we'd won several games that we were expected to win, we'd have been in the top 4. If we'd killed off several teams that we had on the rack, instead of letting them back in, we could have been in the top 2.

Yet this has been the pattern for three years under Nobby. Surey it's evident that we need to step things up a little bit.

This is our main problem we cant do this on sat cause they will snap it up straight away

No, its not the case, Noble has flaws, but some of the tripe written on this page of the forum alone means its pointless discussing it because for whatever reason Noble's face doesnt fit.

Ill say this one more time, If we win our next two games, I dont care that we lost to Celtic away or at home to Wakefield, because we will be champions and Noble will deserve the praise for that, as will the players.

IL has done many good things, has he made mistakes, yeah, but nobody will acknowledge them, but let Noble make a mistake and its flame central on here.

I just want us to up our game a little.

I don't dislike Noble or find fault with everything he does. I like to think I've given him his due, and I certainly will if we win the GF.

I can't speak for everyone else on that, of course. But I still contend that we need someone more innovative to take us to the next level.

And would you agree that Wane although Wigan through and through isn't the right man for the job at this moment in time and would be more suited to an assistant position to say McGuire.

Ok, lets take one example. Even if its only my [iopinion [/ithat standards in terms of fitness have slipped, please could you say whether that is an opinion you agree with or disagree with. If you disagree and believe that standards are as high as they ever were in that area, then please say so!

Also, could I ask you please to not describe my statements as "half truths". I am not a dishonest person and am very unhappy at this remark.

I have to say again that a number of pro-Noble people on this thread are embarrassing themselves with needless personal comments and they really should think more carefully before posting.

It is a fact BK, you're right. But surely we would be better placed in the play-offs if we finished higher (I know the bizarre new system reduces the advantage but I'd still prefer to be playing at home this weekend).

I also struggle with watching the team play absymal rugby and embarrass itself in the first half of the season and I don't think that's healthy for the fan base. A lot of people who post on this board are die-hards but I am worried that less committed fans are put off by the rubbish that is served up in the early part of the season. I would also like us to do better in the cup, a trip to Wembley would be nice but we don't seem to ever peak for that competition....