But although "Bomber" is a respected coach on both sides of the globe, his teams have come a cropper at the Shay before now.
His St Helens side lost here 16-10 in May 1998 before we fully realised how good a team John Pendlebury had shaped that season.
And the newly merged Hull FC came down to earth with a bump in March 2000 when they were beaten late on by a Halifax team who went on briefly to top the league that month.
The only bad news from that match was a bad ankle injury to Danny Fearon, one of those you can't really bear to look at.
It marred an amazing victory where Fax had been winning 26-10 at one stage before trailing 27-26 with only stoppage time remaining.
Marty Moana's chip and collect saw Greg Florimo force his way over though for a dramatic victory.
Poor Fearon, now a Calderdale Service Area coach, was being taken round the field on a stretcher at the time and was nearly tipped off by the bagmen carrying him as they craned their necks for a better view!
That Hull side was basically a reheated Gateshead team from 1999.
And they had been sent home from the Shay with their tails between their legs after the Blue Sox battered them at the Shay in July of that year.
The home side shouldn't have had a sniff really.
They had suffered bad home defeats in June to an Adam Hughes-inspired Wakefield and a Castleford side who had nilled them.
They had then lost Pendlebury, football manager David Hobbs and Kelvin Skerrett as the club went into their CVA before selling Chris Chester and Gavin Clinch to Wigan.
That left the team without a halfback and caretaker coach Gary Mercer made a brave decision to fill the gap which was only revealed an hour before kick-off when the teamsheets were posted in the dressing room corridor.
Feeding the scrum was Paul Rowley and packing down in the middle of the front row was debutant Danny Barnes.
Barnes - nicknamed "Danny Bones" by his Alliance team mates – was from the Stanley Rangers nursery that produced Chester, David Foster and Matty Firth, but gave up the game months later to join the Fire Service.
In fact, personnel wise, the season nearly fell into two halves, Pendlebury and post Pendlebury, with only a certain Damian Gibson and Richard Marshall playing in all 32 matches.
Others who only missed a handful of games were Nick Pinkney, Daryl Cardiss, Paul Broadbent and Graham Holroyd.
The extent of "Ming's" rebuilding job can be gauged by the fact that four of those six were to leave at the end of the season.
There were replacements of course because Des Clark had followed Clinch, Chester and Skerrett out of the club.
Arrivals in the immediate aftermath of the Gateshead success were Jim Gannon, Simon Knox, Mick Shaw, Lee Milner and Andrew Dunemann whilst Fearon was given an extended run in the side and there were debuts for David Foster and Wes McGibbon.