The calls for his head were regrettable but that is professional sport and working in a results business.

Did he really tell the board he would resign before the game?

No, I think he probably won't. However, I don't think Agar, McNamara, McDermott are any better than him. They won't win Super League. Noble is head and shoulders above all other English coaches (apart from a certain Mr Smith who has taken UK citizenship).

EDIT: Apologies to Jon Kear. He is obviously a good coach and has achieved more than Cullen.

I think there are a number of current SL sides and Championship sides with SL aspirations who would do better than currently with PC in charge.

There is an unfortunate pattern in sport where an ex-player regarded as a club hero becomes coach of the club, it nearly always ends up in tears, in football you had Souness at Liverpool, Robson at West Brom, Hoddle at Spurs, Shearer at Newcastle. Shearer ended up doing what Cullen avoided in 2002, but I bet if Newcastle had stayed up, his spell in charge would have unfolded like PC, with a slow reluctant erosion of support from the faithful. The same thing happened in rugby league with Mal Meninga at Canberra and Wayne Pearce at Wests and Brad Fittler at the Roosters. Its hard to think of examples of club heroes as players where it went onto work for them as coach, Kenny Dalglish at Liverpool being the exception.

Now looking back with hindsight my theory on the PC era is that the timing of events, with the new stadium, new money and expectations etc, meant that the job came at the wrong time for him. He was doing well at Whitehaven and had earned a shot at SL but I think had he taken over Salford in 2002 instead of Harrison, he would have steadied the ship and toughened them up initially (like he did us), and then would have had a period of consolidation with fewer big name big ego players, lower expectations which would have allowed him to develop as a coach without having to deal with the whole emotion of it being the Wire which I reckon didn't help PC with us because it made him put more pressure on himself. He is still pretty young as a coach and he could have had 1 or 2 SL jobs before eventually ending up at Warrington as an older coach, look at John Kear who had a mixed early career at Bramley and Paris St Germain then Sheffield Eagles in the 1990s, has gradually become a better and better coach over the years. How would Kear have gone on if he'd been appointed Castleford coach at the start of SL and Cas expected him to deliver trophies?

I also think had Mike Gregory's sad illness not happened, that he would have coached us and it could have been the right job at the right time. He looked like he was a pretty good coach and had already got Wigan to two finals but this was the Maurice Lindsay era so Maurice would inevitably have sacked him a year or two later, and the Simon Moran/HJ stadium revolution would have been well timed for Gregory to come in. Maybe had things turned out differently, we could have had Gregory as coach and Cullen as his successor, and it would have turned out better that way.

You made, as usual, an excellent and articulate post, but out of personal bias, I just want to throw in Howard Kendall and Joe Royle (both Everton) as former players who consolidated their hero status as Manager. I would perhaps say Alan Ball, too, to some extent, enhanced his reputation as a manager of City.

Great post. I often think the big SL chance came too early for PC and that a stint as a number #2 under a great coach would have done him the world of good. But maybe he had to grab his chance when he could. The problem was that bar 18-24? months at Whitehaven he hadn't known as other pro RL environment than Warrington in 20 years+ (and all that would entail).

I honestly had my reservations when I asked him about the drink culture in 2002 and his answer was "you should have seen it in the 80's".

Did A good job but was never good enough to win a trophy. Tony Smith took a team assembled by cullen and transformed them from also rans to cup winners in under 6 months. Cullen would never have been able to do that. Also we had the same problems within the team occuring week after week during matches,such as building up a match winning lead only to throw it all away in the last ten minutes. Cullen seemed clueless as to how to stop this happening. A good league 1 or lower end of super league coach,but I think if you wait for major silverware with him in charge you will be waiting a hell of a long time.

I think that is particularly unfair - there is only one coach in SL who can consistently keep getting a job despite ultimately, eventually, after a promising start, failing in spectacular fashion, and that's John Kear.

My thoughts on Cullen? He was exactly what the club needed when he came in, he motivated the squad and picked up their confidence just enough to avoid relegation that fateful year. He took essentially the same damn squad to the playoffs the following year and was fierce about wanting to leave Wilderspool "with pride", which we did.

Cullen has been one of the greatest servants this club has ever had, through his playing days to his work in the backroom staff (It was Cullen who spotted the wolf in the town crest and chose that for the new marketing rules set out for all clubs at the start of the SL era), as a member of the coaching team before then choosing to cut his teeth as a first team coach at Whitehaven.

I always feel very sorry for Paul that people only remember him for the loss of form during his final season or two in charge, yes the team played poorly at that time, but I also remember huge wins, titanic struggles, brilliantly entertaining rugby and 10 match winning streaks under his reign as well.

As glad as I am that we now have TS in charge, I am forever grateful to Paul for everything he ever did for his home town club, the guy is a hero, nothing less. Just remember what he said about taking up the first team coaching position at a club standing on the precipice of relegatiion, when he already had a successful career beginning at Whitehaven: "I couldn't walk away from the fight"

As far as the criticism of his talking style on the television goes, typically the only people I have ever heard complain about this are the same ones who need elocution lessons just to be able to say the word eloquent.

With our poor lost at home to toulouse, we will soon have threads Cullen out on our messageboard.

As far as the criticism of his talking style on the television goes, typically the only people I have ever heard complain about this are the same ones who need elocution lessons just to be able to say the word eloquent.'"

personaly i think he came back to warrington to early as he still knew some of the players from before he left so never had/got that manager player relationship because as the years went on then the 'friendships' continued

yes he took us as far as he could at the time

yes i would have him back as no.1 in the future "never say never"

also don't think he had a free rain to run the team as he wanted

2006,
play off win,
wallpaper,
cracks

Yes, that would also be the John Kear who had plenty of time and failed to make any improvement whatsoever to Huddersfield. He has had just as many poor results and seasons as other coaches, but credit where due he has had some excellent cup results.



I think Cullen is a solid coach, and I have not disputed anything that has said Cullen took us as far as he was able to while at the helm. What I have said is that a lot of the vitriol aimed at Cullen by certain members of our fanbase is unwarranted, and frankly disgusting.

I was honestly embarrassed to be associated with the section of Warrington fans during Cullen's final months in charge.



Yes I did, I also watched us in 2005 when we finished 4th. We were inconsistent under Cullen there is no doubt about it, but as I said, I have not once said I think Cullen is a league winning coach, I just think you lot are being extremely harsh with your comments about him.

Cullen had 5 full seasons with us, of these you could say 2 were good (2003 and 2005), where we outperformed expectations, and 3 were disappointments (2004, 2006 and 2007) where we didn't live up to expectations. Like Cat says the playoff win in 2006 papered over cracks, we were a long way down on our 2005 form.

I thought Cullen's reign peaked on the day when we beat Leeds on Andrew Johns' debut. It had been a hot glorious summer, England won the Ashes, we played some fantastic rugby through those summer months and had some memorable wins, we got the best player in the world on board, we were the toast of the media and Wolfware was rammed with people buying Johns merchandise. That was the high point of the Cullen era and it seemed like we were within range of winning the Grand Final.

When Hull beat us in that playoff at home it was a watershed, we only had one more "high" under Cullen which was the playoff win at Leeds, other than that it was general disappointment. After that Hull defeat the club lost its way for the best part of four years, IMO the point at which we found our way again was the win at Bradford last year.