On the other hand there seems to be loads of people who think they know how the team should be coached!

At the end of the day the table doesn't lie!! We've finished 6th and the standard of the rugby across the board has been some of the poorest I’ve ever seen. Neither Saints or Leeds have been spectacular, Hull KR have had a poor finish to the year and Wakey have had their backs against the wall with injuries, Catalan have gone backwards and that’s just the top eight! Out side of the playoffs you’ve got teams like Celtic and Salford who haven’t got up to speed with SL and Bradford and Hull FC are shadows of their former self’s.

Noble has taken numerous bad decisions and calls during the season and the blame has to land at his door for what has been a very poor season;

-First game of the season why didn’t he start with a either Mcilorum or Tomkins on the bench? The game of musical chairs we played that day when Riddell went off was a farce tbf.

-Starting Feka in the first few games of the season meant we had zero impact mixed in with no hooker off the bench.

-Playing an unfit Roberts at the start of the season (Roberts imo is a good player but he was rushed back from an injury we were told would keep him out for a good few early games) It effected his confidence coming back unfit and not up to speed and provided zero benefit for the team.

-Dropping Sam Tomkins and rushing Riddell back from injury against Hull KR a week after Tomkins had won the CC game for us against Wakey was a stupid decision.

-Constantly picking Tim Smith even tho he couldn’t tackle to save his life!! He showed from the start of the season very little to justify the hype he came over with. Regardless of how well he can pass a ball it’s all pointless if he lets players go past him for fun.

-He’s not driving the players hard enough imo—Hock getting banned, Feka and Riddell not being as fit as they could be, Fielden performing inconsistent for the past few years and not being bulked up even tho any man and his dog can see he needs the extra bulk when you compare him to players like Peacock, Graham, Carvell and Morley. Those are the top props in SL and that’s the bracket Fielden was in and the type of player we need.

That’s just what I’ve made of this season and I just don’t like what Noble has done for us this season.

I’m sure not everyone will agree and claim Noble is still a world class coach but I just can’t see.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - If some posters on here were allowed to run our club, they'd run it into the bloody ground (and yes that includes myself

).

IL knows what he's doing, its so blatently obvious BN won't be here next season that IMO no announcement is needed anymore!

As I just said on another thread! We Have been poor all season and yet with 3 more wins we could of finished second.

Super league is shocking and a joke!

Exactly but more worrying than that is it goes to show just how poor we have been this season.

This year we’ve lost to some poor teams and had to fight real hard to beat some as well.

Now I still don’t think all the players are as bad as people make out and I know we can’t continue down the same road we’ve been on for a few years now.

So what do we do?

The simple and most straight forward answer imo is to get rid of Noble and bring in a fresh approach.

How do you know?

And don't give us some 'round the houses' pile of self-justifying windbag drivel. Just tell us clearly and concisely how you know this to be 100% true. Think carefully, because it seems to me that your entire argument is hanging from this one nail.

By the way, you were a 'plonker' for calling someone out over some minor disagreement from days and days before, and quoting something completely irrelevant to try and prove you were correct after all. I think most folk would agree that was a fairly plonkerish thing to do.

Well, I agree for one.

I don't want to get embroiled in another "mediocre SL" thread, but the standard of rugby this season has been poor. Saints are a shadow of the side they were 3 or 4 years ago, Leeds are nothing special. We weren't that far off 3rd but have been absymal for large parts of this season. The "chasing pack" hasn't caught up with Saints and Leeds, the top sides have been dragged down, sadly.

Whilst this is bad news for RL in general, its great news for Wigan - if Wigan could be better organised in the backroom and installed a forward thinking coach we could be challenging for honours with the players we already have and with our unrivalled local player base we could really benefit from the current system (not that I think the CC is right, obviously!

)

Well I have said it before and I will say it again if Mo had handled the coaching situation like this everyone including you would want him lynched.

Why is IL immune from criticism?

But what I really don't get is the opinion put forward that "we don't need to know". Why don't we need to know? The other one is "we have no right to know". I think these arguments are spurious nonsense because this a sport club and fans want to know the coaching issue is being addressed. The silence form the club in this and the Hock situation as well for that matter [uis down right poor public relations.[/u That alone is reason enough for the club to have commented along the lines of "Noble won't be our coach and a new one will be announced in due course". You can have all the fans forums you want but if when there is a real issue to be addresses of genuine concern to the fans and the club is completely silent on the matter it shows those things up as rather pointless events.

All this "it will affect us in the play offs" is nonsense because apparently Noble and the players know the score already. If they don't and are is in the dark as we are, [ithat[/i might affect them.

Dave

dave, why does IFL deserve any critism in the first place??

i actually agree with you that all he had to do was come out and say brian noble wont be here next season. the bottom line is he hasnt so move on!

he said at the first fans forum that he never comments on rumours/speculation so why should he change his stance on them issue's now just because afew posters on the forums want to know everything thats going on at the club??

as i said afew pages back everything wil come out in due course. i really dont see what the problem is well have a coach next season maybe a new signing or two, so why not enjoy the rest of this season and worry about next season when 2009 is over,
as for the hock comment imo IFL did nothing wrong in giving a no comment stance on that issue.

The comparison's with Mo make me laugh, and although he has a genius at the time he failed to adapt to the modern era when the cap came in and the result nearly saw us relegated from the League.

Mo is/was a showman he liked to create headlines liked to ruffle a few feathers, and while it did work, it had its time and sadly for him and us that was pre cap.

We are in the 2009 season, why not concentrate our efforts on that, rather than constantly looking forward, why not deal with 2010 at the conclusion of the 2009 season.

Simply because it is different to the way Mo went about things does not make it wrong, its simply a different approach.

I am happy to follow a different path if it leads to long term success for the club, Mo's showman efforts were not paying off leading to us being used to manipulate every NRL players contract negotiations and ensure we ourselves paid over the odds for players.

Rather than give him stick why not just be patient and see what this approach brings? If after a couple of years or even when the announcements are made for 2010 you are not happy then have a go.

This is what concerns me about the anti-IFL campaign. I've been accused of always defending him, but some people it seems are always attacking him, and I don't understand why.

Question - what do we know about the Noble situ? Answer - nothing.

Yet we've had quotes like "it's an absolute disgrace", it's "totally unjustifiable", etc. At the end of the day, while he may have handled the PR side of this badly (though we don't know that for a fact yet, because we simply don't know what's going on), it's not as if it's the end of the world. A small bunch of fans, and a few journalists who are notorious for showing pique when they aren't kept in the loop (i.e. Eddie and Stevo) are the only people making an issue of this. I think in his time thus far he's got a couple of things wrong, but nothing comparable to some of the errors Mo and Whelan made towards the end of their period in power - so I don't accept this argument that "if Mo had done this, he'd be lynched". Mo would have been, it's true, but that would have come the back of 'breaking the cap', selling young players off, chopping and changing coaches all the time, almost getting us relegated, etc. This idea that IFL shouldn't be immune to criticism is fine, except that those making the point always seem to be looking to criticise, despite having very little reason to.

The other thing is - I've been quite unnerved by rumours I've heard recently about Whelan showing renewed interest in taking over Wigan RL. It may be rubbish, and I don't think IFL's the sort of guy to cut and run just because people are calling him names. But if he's feeling the economic pinch, and if Whelan's causing problems for him, and if all his best efforts are failing to turn Wigan back into a force, and if he's reading nothing but bitter critisicm on-line, it may well dent his enthusiasm.

Criticism is fine, but when there doesn't appear to be much to criticise for, it strikes me as just more of the rampant negativity that certain trypes of Wigan fans seem to revel in. Just off the top of my head, I also remember having to listen to bitter criticism by certain Wigan fans of, among others, Graham Lowe, John Monie, Ellery Hanley, Shaun Edwards, Steve Hamson, Graeme West, Martin Offiah, etc. Even ebullient characters like these could do no right for some Wigan fans. So what chance a guy who's main fault so far seems to be prudence?

It's always made me laugh being a Wigan fan, I can still remember some bitter thick guy stood behind me who used to shout 'Anley, thys a load o e' anytime he made the slightest error, although not quite so politely as the swear filter on here