sally cinnamon:




I always expected Price's reputation to get better with the passing of time when people forget what it was like.

If you just look in the record books, he had 4 years, got to 3 finals, won a Challenge Cup and had league finishes of 4th twice and 3rd twice. In terms of league position that's the only time apart from 2010-13 under TS that we've been top 4 for four consecutive seasons. We were garbage the year before he took over (TS last season) and we were even worse the year after he left (Powell's first). So on paper he was pretty good in the history of Wire coaches.


But that doesn't tell you the full story. It's like when you see that table of most successful England football coaches by win percentage and Fabio Capello is top. 


Price had four years but only really about one and a half where the fans were feeling good. That first year as Wires71 says was good progress given where we were the year before. Price brought better organisation and a defensive toughness. The black mark against that season was the Wembley final against Catalans when we took 20 minutes to get off the bus and the game was gone. 


Then in Price's second year we won 11 of our first 14 SL games then 5 of the last 15. That halfway point of the second year was the turning point in the whole Price era. Our Challenge Cup win came in that second half, and the win in the final against Saints was IMO the greatest 'big game' performance I've ever seen from Wire, given the occasion, the opposition, the pressure we withstood. Absolutely incredible. But a week or two after that win there were already people on here saying the Challenge Cup had 'papered over the cracks' and Price had taken us as far as he could. You could see we were in a spiral that we couldn't get out of. Blake Austin had started that season like a house on fire and was front runner for Man of Steel at the half way point then teams worked him out and that massively neutered our attack. 


The third and fourth year were a bit weird because of covid, we had a decent winning run when games restarted after the first lockdown and were played in front of empty stadiums but we never looked like we were in the calibre of Saints or Wigan or Catalans and we went down easily in the first round of the playoffs. That happened to us three times in a row and by the end we had low expectations of doing anything in the playoffs. 


The rugby wasn't very exciting under Price either but the most frustrating thing was that after half way through his second year we never looked like we had anything new. We knew when we came up against somebody good we'd fall short. We knew if we went behind in a game we wouldn't come back. We had good enough players to win more games than we lost but there was no Plan B against a team who had worked us out. 


The Cullen era was far more enjoyable than the Price era despite the results on paper not being as good. We had a few games every year where Wilderspool or the HJ was rocking and we'd win playing exciting rugby against a top team. We never had any memorable moments under Price apart from that backs to the wall win at Wembley. 

ninearches:

We were rubbish in 2019 & won the CC against all expectations. We were rubbish in ,was it 2017 (?) when Tony Smith fell out with the sport.
All the time i have watched the Wire ,they fail with such repetition at the last hurdle. The Wire are a club for die hard fans & not for trophy hunters. I don't remember them being champions except for what i've read in record books & our best chance for silverware is probably always going to be the Challenge Cup.

sally cinnamon:




Now...the big question for this year is, are we repeating the same pattern with Burgess that we did with Price. Improvement and encouragement year 1 and losing at Wembley then stalling in year 2. There are some ominous signs but I'm not writing Burgess off early like I did Price. Sometimes you have external factors that affect things and I don't feel like we're a busted flush at this point. We'll see how things develop. 

Snaggletooth:

for the money spent and the money available, we should be in a much better position

Lord Tony Smith:

At least under Price we could defend and had a bit of resilience.

mark_m:

All the armchair experts bagging on Price when he was the last coach at Warrington to actually win anything. Six years ago. Astonishing. This forum never changes. 

mark_m:

All the armchair experts bagging on Price when he was the last coach at Warrington to actually win anything. Six years ago. Astonishing. This forum never changes.