Saints sweep the boards at awards...

[Fairleigh Good!]

Man of Steel 2006: Paul Wellens (St Helens)
Runner up: Gareth Ellis (Leeds Rhinos)
3rd: Danny Nutley (Castleford Tigers)

Young Player of the Year 2006: James Graham (St Helens)
Runner up: James Roby (St Helens)
3rd: Chris Ashton (Wigan Warriors)

Coach of the Year 2006: Daniel Anderson (St Helens)
Runner up: Brian Noble (Wigan Warriors)
3rd: Karl Harrison (Salford Reds)

Players Player of the Year 2006: Paul Wellens (St Helens)

Stat Awards:
Metre-Maker 2006: Danny Nutley (Castleford Tigers) 3,372m
Hitman 2006: Danny Nutley (Castleford Tigers) 1,001 tackles

Referee of the year 2006 (& Grand Final ref): Richard Silverwood (Mirfield)

Rightly so. All richly deserved...

 

[douglasallen91]

how did noble come runner up for coach of the year, i would have thought peter sharp would be easily the number two at least.

 

[Fairleigh Good!]

how did noble come runner up for coach of the year, i would have thought peter sharp would be easily the number two at least.

Sympathy votes counted double apparantly. Noble's name there is daft, particularly ahead of Harrison, Sharp and even John Kear. Hey give me a million quid and I'd turn a club around.

Ashton's presence above Washbrook and a few others is also purely because of the charity for Wigan element.

 

[Evil Homer]

To be fair to Ashton,he's easily been Wigan's best player this season.

 

[bartman]

Thought Karl Kirkpatrick has been given the Grand Final, not Silverwood?

Nutley's stats are amazing, he didn't shirk.

 

[Fairleigh Good!]

Thought Karl Kirkpatrick has been given the Grand Final, not Silverwood?

Nutley's stats are amazing, he didn't shirk.

Probably has. I copied and pasted from a main stream sports site.

 

[deluded pom?]

Richard Silverwood is a joke . He's not even in the top three SL refs let alone the best .

 

[ParraDude_Jay]

Sympathy votes counted double apparantly. Noble's name there is daft, particularly ahead of Harrison, Sharp and even John Kear. Hey give me a million quid and I'd turn a club around.

Ashton's presence above Washbrook and a few others is also purely because of the charity for Wigan element.

You're full of it mate :lol:. Ashton should have been above Roby, not below Washbrook.

And you just prove how biased you are by suggesting Kear deserves to be ahead of Noble. Kear had a couple of games to get a couple of wins, Noble took over Wigan with 1 win and no form and turned them into one of the form teams of the back half of the year. Did you forget Kear was sacked early in the year, real bloody coach of the year material there.

 

[Fairleigh Good!]

You're full of it mate :lol:. Ashton should have been above Roby, not below Washbrook.

And you just prove how biased you are by suggesting Kear deserves to be ahead of Noble. Kear had a couple of games to get a couple of wins, Noble took over Wigan with 1 win and no form and turned them into one of the form teams of the back half of the year. Did you forget Kear was sacked early in the year, real bloody coach of the year material there.

Kear had a tougher job than Noble. His arrival at Wigan coincided with the majority of their senior forwards (Fletcher, Logan etc) coming back to fitness and he signed Fielden with the aid of a £500,000 cheque. He didn't do anything that any other coach couldn't have done. Kear did the same transformation act without spending a single penny and without several internationals in his side like Noble had.

It annoyed me immensly that during a season in which Saints and Hull consistently proved themselves as the best sides in Super League playing some truly brilliant rugby league, yet all Sky treated us too was the Wigan saga every week and some god awful struggleathons.

In the closing weeks when Wigan had a few consecutive easy beats at home, we even had Eddie and Stevo comparing Dobson to Andrew Johns and saying he, Ashton and Noble should receive the awards. I watched that as they struggled to beat dog rough sides with nothing to play for as their positions were decided and felt sick.

If you watched Sky this season you would think Super League is an awful standard of rugby. Sky have robbed the viewing public of some classic games, all in favour of showing Wigan's latest appologetic performance.

And on Ashton, good prospect though he is, he is not a Super League quality fullback yet. He can't tackle for one and I've watched him all year on sky miss tackles and then have the commentators tell us he is competition for Paul Wellens this year. :lol:

 

[Fairleigh Good!]

But yeah, I am biased;-)

 

[bartman]

I don't think a coach that walks on his club mid-year should be in contention for any coach of the year award, so that counts out both Noble and Kear in my book.

But Kear pulled off what looked like the undoable, and Noble's task had a smell of the inevitable about it all along, with the talent he had in the place.

 

[buccaneer]

Hard to go against Anderson as Coach of the Year, Challenge Cup winners, League Shield winners and Grand Finalists. OK, we know he had the squad to do it, but so did Leeds, Bradford & Wigan and they all ended up with nothing.

Did Noble deserve it for keeping Wigan up....NO... it was always a matter of when, not if they would pull away from the bottom. Add to that, the unlimited funds he had and I guess we will have to wait until next year to see if they broke the Salary Cap again.

Harrison, great start for Salford, but faded too much.

Kear, good at Wakey, not so good at Hull (but still only lost 2 games more than Peter Sharp)

Peter Sharp, hard to give it to someone for just over half a season.

 

[deluded pom?]

I don't think a coach that walks on his club mid-year should be in contention for any coach of the year award, so that counts out both Noble and Kear in my book.

Kear didn't walk out he was "invited to leave " by the Hull board after a bout of player power . As Fairleigh said , Noble had a better squad than Kear had to work with and Dave Whelan's millions to spend . That puts Kear ahead of Noble in my books . You'll see what a great coach Noble is when he continues to pick the same old faces for G.B.

 

[bartman]

Fair enough about Kear's circumstances of leaving. I thought there were some initial reports he "walked" when told his contract wouldn't be renewed, but walk or be sacked, I still think it should count you out as a coach of that year.

I agree Kear sits ahead of Noble for mine too, was impressed with what he did at Hull last year, and obviously with Wakefield's circumstances very late on. Noble's guidance of GB hasn't impressed me, not since the two games back in 2004 where his tactics were enough to put the Kiwis out, but fell very flat and had nothing in the final.