Riddel was poor yesterday.

Defensively he wasn't. Attacking-wise yeah, dissapointing.

Charlie, If the situation with Noble is as bad as you say, I assume he cannot recover the dressing room? If this is the case, even IL and his "prudent financing" will have to act and seek a replacement?

You would think so

Maybe IL was hoping that he could put off such things to eventually get Edwards as coach. This is pure conjecture BTW. Seems a vey risky strategy. Bringing in a coach and enticing say Farrel as an assistant to create the possible succession idea may be more feasable.

Personally, I would opt for Stephen Kearney with Andrew Farrel as his assistant and a back room with Shaun Wane, Ruben Wiki. Those types. A short stint of 2 to 3 years here before getting an NRL coaching post would suit Kearney IMO.

What bothered me yesterday was not the squad selection ( I could see Nobles reasoning) but the team selection.

Surely we should have stared with Hock and Feka on the bench.

1) We would have been defensively more solid to start with.

2) Those two players along with Joel Tomkins could have done a lot of damage when brought on.

It didn't make sense.

My instinct when I heard that was that it could have been to appease Hock's ego? Maybe he's not happy starting as sub. With Feka though you wouldn't have thought it would be a problem - he knows damn well what he's good at and when he's best off coming onto the field.

I don't think anybody could ever accuse Hock of having an ego.

Noble opted for Hock / Feka on the bench in 2008. Now he goes the other way in 2009. It makes it look like he has no idea as to what he wants or how he will do it.

It’s one of the craziest decisions I’ve seen him make!!

I don’t expect us to carry on our momentum from the end of last season as a lot of stuff has gone on since then, BUT what I don’t expect to see is Noble forgetting just how game changing bringing Hock and Feka off the bench was for us! We won numerous games because these two came on and swung the momentum in our favour.

Some people say we had Smith at the end of the season and he made the biggest difference but IMO he wasn’t that great last season and looked off the pace fitness wise. If Sam Tomkins can’t match the performances that smith produced last season then we are lost. So why give Smith a chance and not Tomkins?

Has he forgotten Hansen was the top tackler last season? What can’t Hansen do that Bailey can? I'd love Nobby to come and say what Bailey and Mathers offer the side?

Another point as well is that Goulding seems to have trained his boll0cks off this pre season. Add to that he was given a starting squad number you think he’d get a chance.

Richards/Roberts to FB, Phelps on the Wing and Goulding to start next week for me.

To be honest whenever i hear his interviews i get that impression anyway, he seems to think if he talks for long enough, and throws in the odd turn of phrase and quip people will think of him as a cridible coach, most of the time he just ends up talking rubish in my opinion. If as you say he takes this approach with the players then i am not suprised we perform as we have for the last 2 years and counting.

This was my main concern when the team was read out yesterday. He obviously planned to start like a train and blow Wakefield away.

The media make a big deal of how Brian Noble always gets his teams ready for the play-offs and that's all well and good as far as I'm concerned. I am, however, beginning get fed up of finishing the season strongly, but having too much to do because we started so poorly. Each year, Leeds, Saints, or both get off to a flyer while we spend half a season getting ourselves sorted out.
In 2007, everyone was saying how, if we started like we'd finished 06, we'd be real threats but, instead, we seemed to have lost form over the off season, losing 3 of the first 4 rounds without even playing Leeds or Saints.
Last year, we actually kept pace reasonably well for a while, as we managed to grind out some victories while playing poorly. Even so, we lost 6 of our first 13 rounds, winning only narrowly when we won, but sometimes getting pulverized in defeat (a la Millenium Magic).
Logically, one would want to be playing well at the business end of the season but, realistically, you've got to finish top 2 to win it. Is Brian Noble so fixated on the end of the season that he doesn't pay due attention to the beginning? Is our pre-season substantially poorer than our rivals'? I'm just getting fed up of having to give up on a top 2 finish before the season is even halfway through each year. Hopefully that won't be the case this year but Sunday was not a good sign.

Saints lost 5 of the first 10 games last year, and were 8 points behind Leeds in the league with 12 games left.

Yes, that's why I said [ieither[/i Leeds, Saints or both get off to a flyer. Last year Saints got off to a poor start as well.

Anyone got this weeks observer?

Apparently Nobby says that we'll have to cut out 'The Razzle Dazzle' rugby that we tried against Wakey and go back to basics.

I'm wondering if he was at the game and how much more basic our rugby can get.

He's losing it.