Noonan’s re-appointment was announced at the club’s biggest event of the year, the Parents and Partners Ball on Saturday night, hours after CSU shored up fifth spot on the ladder with a big win over the Northern Jets.

“Pat’s led by example and the boys have bought into what he’s done so we’re more than happy to have him for another year,” CSU president Harry Unthank said. 

“He keeps it simple for the boys and he’s very relatable. He’s young and he gets along with them.

“He’s the man for us.”

An honoured Noonan is excited about what’s to come.

“It was good to be asked,” Noonan said. “I was more than happy to stay on and keep developing the team we’ve started to develop this year, that’s for sure.

“We will lose a lot of those boys next year, which is hard. It’s very hard. But we know that already and I think next year will be totally different to this year, that’s for sure. I just hope most of the core group hang around and we can go better than what we have this year.”

But the focus first is on making the best of 2018 – where CSU have at least four games ahead, and loom as a team that could do anything in finals. 

“I think the stakes go up, the skills go up, the pace of the footy goes up,” Noonan said of the upcoming final three rounds.

“We haven’t been there in a long time. We’ve just got to keep going. Keep building momentum. That’s why I’m concentrating on these last three games. If we’ve got momentum going in, we should be right.”

After taking the opportunity to step into senior coaching this year, Noonan said plenty of people wanted to tell him CSU was the toughest gig in the region. But he’s led them to seven wins and built such belief that 10 for the home-and-away season is a reasonable expectation. 

“When I took the job, I had a lot of people say you couldn’t have picked a harder job in Wagga,” he said.

“But, I don’t know, I didn’t really hear that. I just saw it as a challenge. I knew that Daniel (Athanitis) last year developed them pretty well. I knew that the base was there and we just had to top it up with a few blokes and get a solid regime going in pre-season and some simple structures to work on.

“And it’s paying off, which is good.”

The university club has its own unique challenges but the high school teacher says he’s learning as much as anyone else this year and has developed a real understanding and appreciation for the pressures on his players.

“I think to start off with I was very football-oriented,” he said. “But as the year’s gone on I’ve got very acclimatised to how these university kids go. You know, it’s a hard thing for them and I think that I appreciate the lengths that they go to for myself, with the football side of things. It can be quite daunting for them sometimes and I think I’ve become more relaxed in that if someone’s got to work or study – yep, that’s fine, that’s got to happen and football has to come second in that respect, I think.”

Noonan is the fifth Farrer League coach confirmed for next season, along with Jake Wooden (Temora), Shane Lenon (Marrar), Matt Hard (East Wagga-Kooringal) and Tom Yates (The Rock-Yerong Creek). 

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