Quote ="sally cinnamon"I think you're a bit harsh on Cullen.
The squad he took over from Plange was Championship level, and he was trying to get us quickly to a position where we were good enough to compete, but we weren't an established team or particularly attractive destination at first, so he had to make some compromises. He compromised by bringing in players with talent who were not the most disciplined off the field or the best examples for the dressing room.
But what were his alternatives at the time? If he'd have signed a load of average players who had great attitudes we would have just become a mid table unexciting team. Cullen did do two things which the Wire fans on here always call for - he gave a home grown players a chance and he wanted to play exciting rugby. The signings he was bringing in gave us a lot more attacking flair. Even though we were inconsistent and frustrating, one criticism which was never aimed at Cullen was "the rugby is boring", which was said about TS (at the end), Price (the whole way through) and Powell (along with everything else!).
In Cullen's last couple of years he made some excellent signings who were top players but also had the right attitude and TS got to enjoy success with them. But by the time Cullen brought them in, he had run his course as coach.
We had a spell from 2007 to 2012 where the signings we made were fantastic - loads of top players with great attitudes.'"
I don't believe I am being harsh. He was far too pally with the players and they played when they wanted. The Castleford game at home was the culmination of the unprofessionalism.
We played some good attacking rugby for sure but our defence was nowhere near good enough. Monaghan even had to call this out in a Warrington Guardian article I seem to recall. I was at the evening when he was asked if he was going to sort out the drinking culture. He said something like "if you think this is a drinking culture you should have seen it in the 80s".
Cullens coaching career was short lived. Whitehaven, us, then Widnes and done. I don't think he was a particularily effective coach and he was lucky that 2/6 wins at the end of 2002 together with fond memories as a long term Wire player made him untouchable for the next 6 years. We all desperately wanted him to succeed.
The fact is at the HJ he massively under delivered over 4 years with an embarrassment of riches in terms of squad at his disposal. The club sat on their hands for far too long and it was ugly at the end.
I prefer to remember him as my childhood hero. A hardworking, hard tackling centre, not afraid of biff, the abiding memory I have is him getting up off the pitch and chasing after Andy Goodway.
