Noble: Lions ready for glory

12 April 2012

Brian Noble believes Great Britain's win in Australia proves they are finally ready to grasp Tri-Nations glory.

The Lions recorded an historic 23-12 victory over the Kangaroos at Aussie Stadium on Saturday, running in four tries to two as the series was thrown wide open with two games remaining before the November 25 final. With his side holding an 18-12 lead inside the final 15 minutes, head coach Noble admitted Great Britain teams of old may well have capitulated.

"In days gone by we might have panicked, we might have been under a little bit of pressure but we didn't," he said. "We kept knocking our sets out and we managed to get to the right end of the field and we've shown we're as good as the other two teams when we get to the right end of the field."

The Wigan boss has long defended the quality of Super League, and he believes the victory in Sydney proves the competition is producing world-class talent.

"People might find it hard to believe but the Super League's not a bad competition at the highest level and I think it's getting better and better," Noble said.

"We've got some decent players in there and I was especially pleased for Kirk Yeaman on debut and Jon Wilkin. They've shown that they've added to our, albeit small, arsenal of players."

Despite the stunning victory, Noble was frustrated the Lions were unable to make further gains in the first half when they dominated field position and possession.

A number of opportunities were squandered with poor final tackle options or sloppy handling, but Noble was pleased those issues were addressed after half-time.

He said: "I was a little bit disappointed that we didn't have more points on the board. We just hit that element of composure, we just adjusted a couple of things at half-time in relation to our depth and it worked out.

"I knew, if we could get down their end, we could score some points and I thought we were pretty much the dominant side in the first half and they scored an intercept."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in