Arrgrgrgggghhhh we won 2/6.

Think Cullen will get good reception on boxing day as he changed Wire, they were battling with relegation the season before he took over, look at them the past couple of season's always near or in the play offs.

He's already done good job at Widnes, in first season incharge he already won a throphy

Maybe, but the Cullen 'effect' was that he gave everybody a common goal....There was a definite belief in the early days of Cullen, that things were different and not just a case of Wire drifting aimlessly towards more mediocrity, which is definitely what it was like under Plange....Even if we had survived under Plange, things would still have been downbeat, simply because the man himself wasn't THE man, if you get my drift.

With Cullen, there seemed to be a plan at least, and for the most part he carried out that plan reasonably well.

The players still go out for a beer or two, or is it because weve won something that it goes unnoticed

i bet tony smith doesnt join them in stockton heath every friday night.

A good bloke. Stayed too long. Too close to the players. Simple.

Yeah I get your drift. PC sold us a vision and went a step towards it in 2005 before failure.

I think people do seem to forget that Plange contributed more, in terms of league points in 2002, than PC did, yet he gets no credit at all.

Probably tainted by association with Anderson, plus he was a complete outsider with absolutely no qualification to be in charge of Wire....Cullen, at least, had the 'local boy' tag to fall back on, and he undoubtedly had the gift of the gab as well...

You are quite correct about the qualifications however Plange had taken a team to a final before getting the Warrington gig. I'm no huge fan of Plange but he was more critical to Warrington remaining in SL than PC was based on league points.

Anyway I welcomed the PC appointment at the time, I thought he was the real deal as we all did. Sadly he wasn't and isn't, gift of the gab or not.

Re: Plange vs Cullen and who saved us etc. comes down to the following Question:

Despite Plange's better history of W/L ratios, would we have won the two games which kept us in SL without [ithe[/i, or [ia[/i change of coach?

In my own personal view, we wouldn't have won any of them and we would have gone down. Cullen coming in changed the outlook completely at the end of that year and thus I attribute us being saved to him and his influence.

Cullen coming in took the feet off the net.

71, regardless of the amount of games he won, he did what he was brought in to do; prevent relegation. I couldn't see Plange achieving that.

I have a lot of time for Cull and was sickened by the cr@p talked by many 'fans' during his period as coach - so much so that I gave up posting for a while. Unfortunately society being what it is today and 'fans' being what they are, they can say what they like, when they like with very little reproach (unless it's defamatory and even then.....).

Yes he should have gone before he did but some of the posters on here were just plain out of order - and I would suggest many (but by no means all) with very little understanding of the game.

We all pay our cash to see the team play and want them to do well and we have a right to air our views - but that's no different to all fans in all sports. If there's reasoned argument for views, again I have no problem with that but far too many times there was criticism without reasoned argument and that's what makes me really frustrated with forum like this.

Tony Smith is a good coach - and I'll admit I'm more impressed with him since I've seen him working with Warrington close up than I was when he was with Leeds etc. (I did not think it was a first rate appointment - and I was wrong). But even he had lots of critics at Leeds and I'm sure eventually 'fans being 'fans' will turn on him.
Luckily he knows that and - only my belief - he walked before being pushed at Leeds.

Everyone's expectation will be high for this year - even more so than in the previous 7+ years because the team won a trophy last year, arguably we've strengthened and we've got a good crop on youngsters coming through. But I really hope that at the first sign of trouble fans don't start to call for heads to roll.