North Melbourne coach David Noble reaches out to Rhyce Shaw
North Melbourne coach David Noble has reached out to his predecessor Rhyce Shaw as the club targets a fast track to premiership contention.
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New North Melbourne coach David Noble has spoken with his predecessor Rhyce Shaw as he prepares to embark on a bold new era at Arden Street.
Noble, who conceded that he had thought his chances of becoming a senior coach “had passed”, said he had contacted the former Roos coach who reached an agreement for a payout from the Kangaroos last month.
“I’ve reached out to Rhyce, in a private conversation,” Noble said.
He declined to comment on what the pair discussed, though club chairman Ben Buckley earlier said that “the door would always be open” for Shaw in the football community.
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Noble, who played two games at Fitzroy in 1991 before embarking on coaching and football management roles across all levels of football, including most recently at Adelaide and Brisbane, is focused on building a game plan that will stand up in finals.
“I’d like to kick goals,” he said.
“I want to score and want a hard edge on defence to us as well.
“We need to build a platform of capacity to play finals long-term, that’s the avenue we need to go down.”
The 53-year-old hit the phones on the weekend, contacting a number of Kangaroos players to introduce himself before his first official arrival at the club on Monday, and anticipates incoming former Pie Jaidyn Stephenson to push further up the ground in 2021.
“I saw him a couple of times (this year) on the wing, and I really liked what he had to offer as a bit of a point of difference,” he said.
“He’s got speed and carry and he’s got great decision making with the ball … I’d like to have some versatility through our running areas.”
Noble has two remaining assistant coaching positions to fill — a forward and midfield role respectively — and said while the club is “in a hurry, we don’t want to rush the decision”.
The key for all of his coaching team, Noble said, was to feel confident in their own responsibilities.
“I don’t want to have any involvement in the footy area from (football boss) Brady’s (Rawlings) perspective,” he said.
“I want to make sure the assistant coaches feel really confident they’ve been delegated authority. I won’t be taking main training sessions, I’ll have an input and there’ll be certain aspects I want to get right in there, but we hope to bring some experience in from our assistant coaches.”
ROOS SET LOFTY FLAG TARGET FOR NOBLE
North Melbourne wants to push for the top four and a premiership in as soon as two years, chairman Ben Buckley has declared, in a bold vision that Kangaroos officials are refusing to shy away from.
Buckley said on Monday that new coach David Noble had embraced the time frame, which he said gave the incoming mentor “two to three years to get us in a position where we’re competing regularly in the top four and ultimately looking to win a premiership”.
And he won’t apologise for the ambitious objective, despite the club’s dismal 2020 season and 17th-place finish.
“If a club is not ambitious, then it’s really not serving its members properly,” Buckley said.
“Every club in the competition, ultimately, wants to win a premiership, and the best way to do that is to be a consistent performer in the top four.
“Time frames are always difficult things to nail down.
“But I think it’s realistic that we think in that time period, we should be competing at that level.
“That’s our ambition and that’s been the goal that we set ourselves as an organisation.
“We’re not going to get there immediately. There’s still parts of the puzzle to put together and there’s foundations to build on. But ultimately, that’s our goal and I don’t think we should apologise for it.
“We have to be ambitious. We have to set our sights on the ultimate prize. Someone like David is realistic about the time frame but also ambitious and will put the right pieces of that puzzle together.”
Noble, who was announced on Friday as the club’s new senior coach following the departure of Rhyce Shaw at season’s end, agreed that the goal was one he welcomed.
“That’s in line with what we spoke about at the board meeting,” he said.
“I love (it) … we’ve got to have that ambition.
“There’s no problem with that.
“The chair made it really clear — we’ve got to get ourselves organised, we’ve got to build a plan that’s going to be long-term, but there’s no ceiling on our group.
“So therefore that’s absolutely in alignment with what we’ve already talked about.”
Noble, who said he had spoken with Shaw recently, will work closely with former Sydney and Melbourne coach Paul Roos — who was the first to make contact with the ex-Brisbane football boss in relation to the role — who the club confirmed would return from Hawaii in the new year to work in a wide-ranging role assisting both on and off the field.
He said he had all but conceded that a senior coaching role may elude him, but is determined to be a coach that “wants to score”.
“But I want to have a hard edge, and have a defence that will stand up in finals,” he said.
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