Didn't we have Mathers on loan before that?

Ps great post SC

Halliwell and Mathers were loan signings in 2002.

No question....for me I've always said the game away at Hull under Plange saved us from relegation.
There was no rabbit out of the hat games won under PC.
Stripping Wakefield did save our ass.

I see .

Plange won 4 out of 16 and Cullen won 2 out of 6. Neither were great, but I think being grateful for Plange for winning four games in 2002 is a bit like being grateful to TS for saving our club when relegation threatened in the qualifiers last year...

But you are right about those Plange signings: Westwood and Nat Wood in particular were very influential over the next few years, so credit to him for that.

I think getting Cullen in late 2002 did save us because it changed the momentum. We were sliding listlessly away at the end under Plange and from Cullen's first game where we lost by a point to Widnes, the atmosphere and intensity was different. The Halifax game had some ropey moments and we might well have lost that game a few weeks earlier, and we produced a really good performance against Cas to secure survival.

Yeah - the halfback situation was really significant, and if you break the Cullen era in to two parts: 2002-2005 when things were moving forward and 2006-08 when we were standing still, the big difference was Nat Wood left at the end of 2005. In that first spell Nat Wood was the talisman of the team, not only because he was a good halfback but also because of his attitude.

We had chased Matt Orford for 2006, and if my memory is correct, we then tried for Michael Monaghan, but both fell through and we ended up rushing around for alternatives and picked up Sullivan who had had a good spell as an interchange hooker, but wanted the chance to be a halfback. It became clear very soon that Sullivan wasn't the calibre we had hoped, and the comparison between him and Nat Wood was chalk and cheese. Sullivan didn't seem to have a great relationship with Cullen nor did he seem to be really bothered about Wire. Contrast to Nat Wood, who embraced the jersey and fans and was a positive influence in the dressing room.

Mind you, I'm not sure Orford would have been the answer despite being a much higher calibre player, as he later signed for Bradford and did a "Sandow" on them.

Michael Monaghan was the right signing, a blue chip player with a great attitude, but he wasn't nearly as effective at halfback for Cullen as he was at hooker for Smith, so Cullen suffered from not having the right man at halfback from the moment Nat Wood left.

Much as I adore Cull for what he did as a player, and as a coach in the early days of his tenure, there's a tendency towards romanticism and era-rewriting going on here.

Cull assembled a great cast but too often they were more Prisoner Cell Block H than Royal Shakespeare Company. Monaghan was a [ipoor[/i scrum half who's speciality was interceptions and don't get me started on Sullivan.

There was a toxic culture of drink, under-ambition and failure at the club and one man, [ione man[/i turned it and the players around - Tony Smith.

Cull would have made a brilliant talent scout/football director and he should still be in the SKY dugout handing out verbal slaps, but as a coach, sadly he fell short.

There were some injuries but in Cullen's later years a lack of resilience had crept in to the club. Other clubs like Leeds or Wigan could lose players to injury and they would see it as a positive, young players would come in and they would still be strong, and they would unearth new talent. We would lose a couple of players and then roll over. Or we'd have a bad defeat and then would go on a losing streak for the next few games, and Cullen would say stuff like "the defeat last week absolutely took the stuffing out of us mentally" as though it was still hanging over us the next game. We didn't have that in the earlier part of Cullen's reign when he was proud of a "no excuses" culture.

I also think that Cullen, despite his incredible focus and desire to bring success to his club, was underneath it all not the most resilient character. In 2003, he was confident, relaxed, spoke really well, connected with the fans (remember he used to do that walk across the ground to acknowledge the 'there's only one Paul Cullen') and he just personified the new era of the club: after all the troubles of the past, the Warringtonian who had reinvigorated his home town club, going in to a new era in a new stadium. He was the perfect leader.

But once we had our first bad spell in 2004, Cullen became very tetchy. He would be defensive and snappy with the media where previously he'd have everyone eating out of the palm of his hand. I think he created a tense atmosphere around the club and in the dressing room because he was prone to being moody if results were not going well. It's not unusual in a coach but the best seem to have a calmness when things are going against them, that they don't transfer any sense of panic to the players. Cullen did transfer a sense of moodiness which probably showed he wasn't that confident underneath.

I think as this was his home town club, he felt a lot of responsibility to the community, and I think he felt a lot of pressure when Simon Moran started investing more money and scaling up the ambition. He didn't want to let people down. I remember when the first of the big signings came - Martin Gleeson - that press conference was awful. It should have been a big positive thing about the new era but you had a morose looking Martin Gleeson looking fed up at having left Saints, and Cullen looking grim faced and robotic: "this...is...a...statement...of...intent". There was just something really odd about it, it felt like everybody involved felt massive pressure and were worried about things going wrong.

I got the impression that in 2003 at Wilderspool Cullen was really enjoying coaching us but as time went on the job became more of a burden and source of pressure than enjoyment, and the rising expectation won't have helped. I also think he was hurt by the fact that results were not going as well as he would have hoped.

I think you are harsh morrisey, Cull wasn't able to shop at Harrods for players as much because of where we were as a club.There was a gradual improvement on the standard of players we recruited but that came on the back of showing results as well as ambition. The signing of Morley being a "step change" signing.

Perhaps I am being harsh, but most people these days look on the TS era as a Cullen built team that Smith managed to galvanise into winning a few trophies and which by 2017 resembled the last days of Pompeii. Goose, gander etc.

Incidentally, that whole walk across the pitch thing Cull did was toe-curlingly embarassing and detracted hugely from the team.

I saw that not like 'look at me'....but more like he was one of us, a fan and that he sat as a connection between us, the players and the board. His way of showing it.

Anyone with P&B blood in their veins knew Cull was one of us, we didn't need graniose entrances to show it. Maybe that was the issue - he was too much of a fan, too close to be objective and dispassionate.

I actually get a genuine feeling of kinship and togetherness from Price, even in the short time he has been here he seems to have developed real affection for the club.

And we had a home win at Wilderspool against Bradford and I thought everything was suddenly on the up....