Noble the hypocrite?

[MrDave]

Taken from Brian Nobles column on BBC Sport:

We certainly don't have enough players to make competition for places in the national team as tough as it should be. As always, if England pick up injuries to their best players, they can't cope. It's been the same story for the last 10 or 15 years. We need our best team on deck to compete at the highest level.

He certainly hasn't been doing his part to help the situation since he has been in coaching. He filled Bradford with players from overseas and is doing a similar thing at Wigan.

If he wants more competition in the England squad he should show faith in his English players at club level like Calderwood and Higham instead of bringing in overseas players like Riddell and Roberts.

[thomo]

Think we need to remember what Noble's job is - he is coach of Wigan and that is his priority he has to get Wigan in the best shape and position he can - ie up the league table and in the grand final.

If Wigan has finished 8th in the table but won the world cup would we all be happy on here - of course not and Noble would be out of a job.

What do us Wigan fans really want to see - a grand final win with a few imports helping out or a team full of local lads finishing 8th

[highland convert]

Excuse me but Brian Noble gets slated for everything. Smith chose the team. Most were in the Noble side. The team was too old and playing on past glories. If Brian shows faith in an English player he is slated, in he signs an ozzie he is slated if he wins he is slated if he loses he is slated. The problem is we demand success but can't accept the we must sign the best players regardless of nationality. I said before Mathers is a better fullback now than Wellans now. That was obvious from half way through the season. I don't think Wellans has another season in him. Positional yes but now vwry slow. That showed up in th WC. Jim

[DaveO]

Think we need to remember what Noble's job is - he is coach of Wigan and that is his priority he has to get Wigan in the best shape and position he can - ie up the league table and in the grand final.

If Wigan has finished 8th in the table but won the world cup would we all be happy on here - of course not and Noble would be out of a job.

What do us Wigan fans really want to see - a grand final win with a few imports helping out or a team full of local lads finishing 8th

We haven't got a team with a "few" imports. We have more now than any time I can remember and our most successful sides had fewer imports than we do now. The side that beat Manly in the WCC had one import on the bench (West) if I recall correctly.

I thought the exact same thing as the o/p when I read that quote the other day.

IMO Noble should not come out with quotes like that one mentioned above unless he intends to do something about it himself or he leaves himself open to the hypocrisy charge.

Everyone seems to be saying we need to cut the reliance on imports, Noble (which is very ironic), Ricky Stuart, Millward and most of the fans seem to think that way as well. Well lets do it then and leave Amos Roberts where he is and get Ainscough into the team.

IMO we are not going to do much better next year than this and IMO are still paying some players very high wages so we may as well take the opportunity to blood the likes of Ainscough while we wait for the remaining big contracts to expire.

If we continue to take the attitude club comes first with respect to the number of imports in the teams we won't have a club game worth watching if we carry on IMO. It will be full of average overseas players with little opportunity for UK players to progress.

Dave

[DaveO]

Excuse me but Brian Noble gets slated for everything. Smith chose the team. Most were in the Noble side. The team was too old and playing on past glories. If Brian shows faith in an English player he is slated, in he signs an ozzie he is slated if he wins he is slated if he loses he is slated. The problem is we demand success but can't accept the we must sign the best players regardless of nationality.

He is only being slated this time for saying one thing, that there are too many imports in the UK game but having done another by building his club sides based on imports.

He is wide open to this criticism because both his Bradford and now his Wigan sides were/are based on a lot of imported players.

So its pretty ironic for him to be coming out with those statements don't you think?

Dave

[highland convert]

Yes Dave, but that should change as the clubs adapt to the 14 then 16 team league. It means that extra players are in the top flight. The 5 fed rule will be in as contracts expire (does contract renewal/etension still attract the amnesty. IE if Fiks signs for two more years would those years be as a non fed trained player) Then the local mix will be greater. Noble is between a rock and a hardplace. Also IL said he was hiring so is the infulx down t Il, JL or BN. We will not have a definitive answer on that one. What teams lack are the likes of Cunningham and Newton, two players nearing the end of their career with nobody in their mould coming through. I think Riddel will prove a great signing. Smith and Phelps the jury is out. Both good if they perform. Pryce was better than his brother and a bit of a dirty begger to boot. Gave quite a few penalties away and I think it was Danny Sculthorpe he flattened with more a forearm smash than a swinging arm, (Red Card)If he gets his speed back could be our top scorer next year.
Jim

[mano]

I have had lot of dealing with IL/JL/BN [no i am not an ex player who was fired off] noble is by far the worst out the 3

[markill]

I have had lot of dealing with IL/JL/BN [no i am not an ex player who was fired off] noble is by far the worst out the 3

worst for wanting foreigners?

How about we look at the problem in another way too by the way? Its not just the amount of overseas player but the positions they tend to play. Wigan and Leeds next year both will be bringing in foreigners to be primary hookers to replace english players. Wigan's halfs have been forign since edwards left. London/Quins have always focussed on foreign halves too. A high amount of wingers at top clubs since SL began have been foreign (even carney was irish) and you can say the same about centres really.

All the ball handling skill positions in super league look to be filled with aussies (apart from halves at leeds and saints i know) so when will our guys get to test their abilities at a high enough level?

[DaveO]

Wigan's halfs have been forign since edwards left.

That isn't strictly true. Danny Orr ring any bells?

You have a point though because even with a reduced intake of foreign players if they occupy key positions then we will always struggle.

So if we go for quality over quantity but import half backs and hookers we will still be stuffed even with fewer overseas players.

I have always said it would be boring to completely ban overseas players (even if a legal way of doing so could be found) but I think the 5 the new system will eventually allow each club is still at least two too many.

All the ball handling skill positions in super league look to be filled with aussies (apart from halves at leeds and saints i know) so when will our guys get to test their abilities at a high enough level?

How Wigan and Noble deal with Tomkins is going to be a big test of that.

Dave

[DaveO]

It may be a little unfair on Noble and another excuse for those who don't like him to have a pop at him, but he really has done himself no favours when you consider his past record with signing overseas players.
It's probably been said a million times before but I honestly think that overseas players are essential for Super League, otherwise we'd be even further behind the Aussies in every department. The top class players that are brought over like Barrett and Gidley are good for the game, but the average overseas players that are brought in to take up places that could quite easily filled by a young player is not going to help our game one bit.

You have to be careful even bringing in top class players if we have too many in the key positions.

I am not sure though how they are good for the game. Just what will any of our younger players have learned off Barrett being here for two years?

Watching him play was good and it raised the standard of the games themselves as he was class but I am not sure just how much influence or actual real input he will have had into Tomkins development for example. After all Barrett had his own training regime and games to play and he wasn't employed as a coach.

Unfortunately Phelps fits perfectly into that category. He was brought in because he was cheap and available. He took the place of a young English player when he was actually one of our better players at that time. People can knock Goulding all they want but at the start of the season he was in better form than Phelps was at any point last season, and by the end of the season Phelps was our worst player. Was it really worth it? Now we have Phelps taking up a quota spot for another year, but had Noble stuck with Goulding, and given Stanton or Ainscough at least a single game to see how they fared, we could have at least tied up the signing of Roberts earlier, since Noble & Lenegan are so keen on giving us yet another Aussie import.

There is no problem with signing a player like Barrett, he can offer a lot to a young player. Is there anything wrong with signing a player like Smith? No, he was cheap, it was relatively necessary that we signing a replacement for Barrett, and at his best he's another player who young players can learn off. If he doesn't perform we have Tomkins.
Is there a problem with signing a player like Phelps? Well yes, average at best, a tackling technique that even 8 year olds would know is wrong, and offers nothing that couldn't be found in either one of our young players or another English player. There are too many players like that in Super League at the moment, and they prevent more English players playing for their clubs, therefore reducing the numbers of players the English coach can pick from.

I agree the lower standard players like Phelps do take up slots. I have said it for years it was fundamentally a bad thing.

In the clubs defence though they say they are cash-strapped due to some huge salaries so if we were to be generous we can only judge their recruitment properly when that issue is out of the way. If when it is we still see average imports come to the club we will need a new direction.

Dave