I know some were glad when he left, I was probably one of them. However, you can't ignore the fact that he helped to rebuild us, and whilst he may have struggled to take us to the next level having fallen at the last hurdle on a few occasions, I firmly believe he laid the platform for this year, so some credit has got to go to him.

Cheer Brian!

Stood build him last night as he told O'carroll and Mossop that he is to have a year out and have his agent pester NRL clubs.
Hoping for a vacancy to jump into over there!

To be fair the two Wigan lads seemed over the moon to see him and genuiy happy for him to be (hoping) getting off to Oz

Brian is a top bloke and i'm glad he came to us, we made the right move to replace him though.

Which is why I said ''Madge's victory''.

I'm taking nothing away from Maguire, he's done absolutely brilliantly to bring the trophy home, but the ''lot of good'' Nobby did that you alluded to will have played a small part.

A very small part.

I don't wish to sound harsh, but I think the underlined bit is the key phrase.

I've no doubt that Nobby is a top bloke, but I feel he's very limited as a coach. This is his team that Maguire has just won the Grand Final with, but in reality it was never anywhere near winning a title while Nobby himself was in control.

He definitely stabilised us after the Millward disaster - and that took some doing, but I don't think he got us anywhere close to winning a Grand Final. We reached several semi-finals under his tutelage, but apart from right near the end, we nearly always looked to be out of our depth.

I think - if you consider the astonishing transformation we've seen at Wigan since 2006, Nobby only really gets plaudits for about 25% of it. The vast bulk of the glory must go to Madge.

That said, it was good to see him there, chatting with the Wigan lads like they were old friends. In that respect, all's well that ends well.

Almost as bad.

Another good thing about last night - somebody called Potter didn't have a magical night.

I'd agree with pretty much all of that, perhaps I was too praising of Noble in my original reply.

The victory, success and results for 2010 are Maguires, and you're right, with that exact team under Noble this year we wouldn't have done anywhere near as well as we have done.

He saved us from going down, steadied the ship and took us up a level from where we were in 05 and 06 (for a variety of reasons).

One thing I think we can all agree on is that nothing should detract from the job Madge has done in his first season as a Head Coach, and long may it continue.

id echo this whole statement!

"Tutelage" ..... word of the day