cant belive the drop an emerging talent and sign a 36 old aussie whats the point in developing talent to never give them a run typical noble he did the same at bradford and wigan had 10 forigners in each team
he is teh most short sighted coach in teh league
tomins only got a go beacuse the 2 aussie halfs were injured last year

I think you are spot on about emerging talent

Problem is whilst he is as brave as a lion, he is sometimes exposed due to his inexperience and the oppostion do target him

Additionally he is not making an impression yet from full-back in attack. Is he the smaller fullback in Superleague ?

He can play also on the wing and used to play there for the Crusaders Reserves before he got his big chance.

I think competition is good for all players and Clinton's arrival will give BN more choice. What we don't want is the e postion we had last year, where the side picked itself (and the players knew it )

Schifcofske is 33 and was NRL's fullback of the year 3 years ago, ahead of the likes of Slater, Karmichael Hunt, Brett Hodgson, Brent Webb, Bowen, Stewart etc. Kear is not SL standard yet and will be ruined if he has to play every week.

Neither Sammut or Schifcofske are long term signings. Kear will be able to learn from them in training and should emerge from it as a better player. Whether he's up to SL at that stage remains to be seen.

The thing is last years coach only knew his rugby up to 2nd division rugby

This years coaches know it up to international standard and they will know just by watching the players in training who is up to it.

By signing Schifcofske, they are in effect saying Kear isn't up to it yet. But he has got plenty of time to learn and if ness be loaned out to the Scorpions

Lloyd White has already said Championship 1 rugby is much tougher than the Crusaders Reserves and he has enjoyed playing for the Scorps

Sammut is, he's only 23. But he will be playing in the halves. Kear is dual registered with Scorpions so will get some valuable experience.

i thought that head....... but not according to Scorps site www.scorpionsrl.com./team.php?id=35 still they can soon sort that out

i thought that head....... but not according to Scorps site www.scorpionsrl.com./team.php?id=35 still they can soon sort that out

I think you will find more youngsters came through the Wigan ranks and stayed with the club under Noble than for a good many years. The building blocks he put in place are reaping the rewards now. Out of the current Wigan squad 33 players there are 8 oversea players 1 being Tommy Leuluai who has played most of his rugby in this country. There are also 20 players that have come trough the Wigan system. It takes time to build a competitive squad and you need a good blend of experienced players and youth coming through the system. And lets be honest last years team was not SL quality it will take at least 2 years to build a good squad and maybe 4 years to get a good academy system in place.

The building blocks are going in place we have now a good ground good amount of fans which will only go up. And a cobbled together squad that has done as good in 9 rounds as it did in a full season last year. I can see a good few more wins and with Nobles record of his teams getting better as the season progresses we might just get into 8 spot for the playoffs.

interesting u say last years coach only knew upto 2nd division rugby considering he was the deputy to probably the most influencial and ground breaking coach the game has ever seen

Was he ever Bennett's number 2? He had quite a few roles at Brisbane, but not sure if he was ever WB's assistant.

Either way, Dixon made huge mistakes last season. Lennon (a wing/full back) at Stand Off, Quinn (a stand off) at Full Back would be example. Hannay starting as many games as he did.

His biggest mistake last season was his treatment of Ste Tyrer. Tyrer's a quality young player, and he was moved from pillar to post, playing for the Reserves, even being sent on loan (from a loan spell with us) to Widnes. Alongside Rhino and Channy, he was our best player at the end of the season when Dixon had no choice but to play him.

JD was too nice for his own good sometimes. Probably the nicest guy I've met in rugby league, but in a choice between Dixon/Seibs and Noble/Sharp/Harris - there is evidently only one outcome.

As for Kear - he has been superb for us this season, and you have to feel sorry for him being dropped. However, he's only 20 and he has plenty of time. He still needs to build his upper body strength a bit, and build his tactical understanding of the game going forward.

I'm pretty confident he can be a brilliant Super League full back in the coming years. Schifcofske is a proven full back, and competition in the squad is probably a good thing, as I'm not sure it would be a good thing to have a 20 year old thinking he's going to play every game because there is no obvious choice to replace him in his position. And before Schifcofske, I don't think there was. I'm ahead of Youngquest in the pecking order at Full Back after some of the errors he's made.