Two months ago Brian Noble was half an hour from signing up for a house outside Cardiff when the call came through that Celtic Crusaders, now simply the Crusaders, were no longer setting up home in Newport but relocating 125 miles north to Wrexham, under new ownership.

In the turmoil and continuing dramas that followed, Noble, the former Great Britain coach who left a revitalised Wigan Warriors for South Wales after four years, has had his share of sleepless nights.

“Did I sit at the end of the bed thinking, ‘What am I getting up for?’ ” he said. “Absolutely. I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t. You wouldn’t be a human being if you didn’t have those thoughts. The reality is that we’re picking up a team whose reputation is in tatters.”

Without the intervention of a consortium led by Geoff Moss, the chairman of Wrexham Football Club, the Crusaders would, in all likelihood, have joined the depressing list of failed rugby league ventures in the Principality.

However, North Wales, where even rugby union struggles for attention, was hardly what Noble signed up for when Leighton Samuel, the previous owner, announced that the Crusaders were abandoning Bridgend after four years for a fresh start at Rodney Parade.

The Newport move was a non- starter once Samuel decided to cut his losses with the Crusaders, a controversial choice for one of the 14 three-year Super League licences last year. The Wrexham deal was brokered and approved by a relieved RFL, leaving Noble somehow to assemble a team, one that is barely recognisable in parts.

That side will play Leeds Rhinos, Grand Final winners for the past three years, in the opening match of the fifteenth Super League season at the Racecourse Ground tomorrow.

To say that it is an invidious start is a gross understatement. However, as Noble — who led Bradford Bulls to three Engage Super League Grand Finals — pointed out this week, “at least we are starting”, only a fortnight after the legalities of the takeover were finally completed.

Noble, typically, has the bit between his teeth. Wrexham, too, appears to have caught the bug for opening night, although with Widnes — home to the Vikings, who lost out in the franchising round to Bridgend — and Warrington only a 30-mile hop across the border, a league audience is near by. Tickets sales are on course for a 10,500 sell-out.

Not that Noble has any inkling how a Crusaders side with up to eight players making their debuts will play.

The legacy of six of the Crusaders’ Australian players being deported in September for visa irregularities, plus financial difficulties encountered by the previous regime, combined to scare off most interest from Australasia. Hull’s release of Gareth Raynor and Jamie Thackray has at least provided Noble with two players he is familiar with from his Britain days, although the recruitment process is continuing.

“The only warm-up game at Harlequins was cancelled, so we haven’t had a hit-out,” said Noble, whose friendship with Martin O’Neill, the Aston Villa manager, initiated the first of only two full weeks of squad training at the Barclays Premier League club’s complex.

“We don’t know what we’re like, we don’t know what our template is, but we’ll have an idea by 10pm Friday.

“In the deeper recesses of your mind, you wonder why you push yourself. But one of the things that excited me about South Wales was developing young Welsh talent. In essence, that hasn’t changed.

“Absolutely, I want to be involved in a winning concept. I don’t think about coming second. That isn’t in my nature, my blood, my DNA.

“From the outside looking in, there are those saying we’ve Buckley’s chance, as the expression goes. I know differently. We’ve a good group of people who’re prepared to work hard and persevere.

“Add those ingredients to an element of luck, a bounce of a ball, and there’s no reason to believe that within two years, if there’s the ambition among the people of Wrexham, board and owners, we should not be winning regularly.”

The road to Wrexham

2006 Enter semi-professional former National League Two (NL2) as Celtic Crusaders, based at Brewery Field, Bridgend.

2007 Win NL2 championship, earning automatic promotion to tier below Super League.

2008 Finish second in Championship and runners-up in Grand Final to Salford City Reds. Both clubs promoted after successfully applying for three-year Super League licences from 2009-11.

2009 In front of dwindling crowds in Bridgend, win only three matches and finish bottom. Six Australian players deported in September for visa irregularities. Brian Noble succeeds John Dixon as coach in October and Newport is announced as new home before club are bought as a going concern and moved to Wrexham.

2010 Racecourse Ground is home to the Crusaders for two years left on club’s Super League licence, with new South Wales Scorpions, in Championship One, maintaining a South Wales presence in Neath.