I remember us being in a similar situation in our early days of being cashed up. We were going to sign Matt Orford for about a year, then he turned us down and joined Manly. Then we were going to sign Michael Monaghan who was Manly's existing no.7 but he turned us down preferring to play hooker and stay at Manly than join us.

So we ended up with...Michael Sullivan.

In the end it turned out well for us, Monaghan became a class act at hooker and had a few years under his belt before he came to do that role for us, Orford ended up at Bradford after he was past his best and injury prone. But we did have this period of players being able to use us as leverage in contract negotiations whilst we didn't have the influence of a trophy-contending club. Salford are in this situation now.

Fundamental difference: Press speculation/Owner comments.

Joel Monaghan signing being a good case in point.

Everyone thought he was going to... CAS of all clubs?

Cullen was obsessive about details of targets not being leaked either because he didn't want to alert other clubs or because he didn't want the club to have egg on its face if it didn't materialise. It's not always possible because often stuff gets put in the public domain by agents who want to bid up their player's value

I don't agree with this bit. Cullen signed a lot of players that were past their best and did not have the same impact for us that they did other clubs: Cardiss, Swann, Kohe-Love, Reardon, Vinnie Anderson.

The likes of Rauhihi and Bracek would go in the category of OK but not quite what we were expecting. The one that was a really failed signing was Michael Sullivan.

And other players that started well but then faded: Grose, Lima, Parker. Arguably Martin Gleeson could go in that category too: although I was always a big fan, after his first couple of seasons his best performances were for GB/England and the occasional good one for us and he was treading water a lot of the time.

I also think it was a mistake to have released John Wilshere so soon as he went on to be a decent player with Salford and Leigh and would have been better than Richie Barnett.

Cullen's good signings come in two categories: the ones that were good even when Cullen was here: Morley, Gleeson, Hicks, Forshaw, Fa'afili, Leikvoll, and the ones that didn't do much when he was here but came good after Cullen had gone: Bridge, Monaghan, King, Louis Anderson, Johnson, Grix (in the case of the last two, they were injured a lot while he was here).

Not sure I'd include Logan Swann or Toa Kohe-Love in that list. Both were fine players. TKL came back on a smaller contract than he had been on at Hull as his injury problems were well documented. He still did a decent job at that time.

You're right about Wilshere, who never got a fair crack of the whip from fans or coaches and went on to be very good for Salford and Leigh as you say.

The list was saying they were past their best and didn't have the same impact they did for us as they did for other clubs.

Logan Swann at his best (eg around the time we tried to get him as a replacement for Kevin Campion) would have been pushing a world XIII. For us he was ok, no more. Toa's best was around 99-01 for us first time round when he was the best strike centre in SL. He wasn't second time round, although he had cut the high tackles out of his game.