i was hoping that Cullen would still be avalable when Mcrea goes home because i rate him as a top coach.
Look what he did at Whithaven when they were in the lower leagues, they worship Cullen up there.
Can see him getting you into the top position for League 1 and in a great position next time franshies come round.
I reakon his problem at wire was the big name Aussie just were bad buys which i believe he had very little say in, it was the money man Moran who called all the shots.
As for his loyalty to Wire, the way they treated him was disgusting and he will, i doubt, forgive them for that.
He is also excellent at building structures and youth development in clubs, just look at the wire youth coming through now, some very good talent i think.
The morons down at the HJ don't know their a%+& from their elbow.
Go for him, i say.

Interesting reading the comments on here, I thought when Cullen's name was linked with the job most of the responses would be very negative because of his Wire background, but most of them are quite positive.

My take as a Wire fan:

Under Cullen, Warrington always played an open attacking style of rugby which is good to watch, Phil Clarke was always going on about how there was no attacking side in the league (other than Saints) who could match Warrington at their best. This change in style was apparent from the time he came in, straight away he pulled Graham Appo out of the reserves to give us more speed, encouraged the forwards like Burns to do more with the ball out wide, and signed Wainwright for the start of the next season to give us more offloading capability. Cullen also insisted that when we moved to the HJ stadium, the pitch dimensions were set at the widest possible dimensions to encourage open rugby - he said at the time that if Warrington were to get to major finals they would be played on wide pitches, so we had to be used to playing on that style of pitch.

One point which was less well highlighted was that Cullen cleaned up Warrington's discipline (ironic as that may be). If you look at the penalty conceded tables over the past few years, Leeds were generally the least penalised team in the league, and then it was Warrington. That was a good stat, and since Lowes has taken over I've noticed us being done for conceding lots of stupid penalties at stupid times.

Cullen has an iron-willed determination and his passion for RL is infectious, if he took over as Widnes coach then supporters' nights and forums etc would be well attended and well received. I remember one at Warrington in 2003 when his stock as Wire coach was probably at its highest, when he said it wouldn't make a difference if he was coach of Warrington or Widnes, he would approach the job with exactly the same enthusiasm.

He is also a coach who thinks big in terms of ambition, which is one reason I think he got such a long time at Warrington, because his personality matched Simon Moran's. He was a good figurehead in Warringtons ambitions moving from the smalltime club at Wilderspool to something which aimed to be - even if we haven't delivered it yet - a top club. Big crowds, Andrew Johns, Gleeson, Morley, Rauhihi etc, Warrington became a different club under Cullen. But as well as signing big names, he was willing to promote young players and he gave a lot of Warrington academy lads a chance - Riley, Pickersgill, Harrison being the main ones, plus he was bringing through Cooper, Blythe and co. He tried to pick up young players from other clubs youth systems to give them a shot as well (see Gaskell, Bridge, Bracek)

It also always seemed that he had the dressing room onside, even when we went through bad patches, there were never any grumblings coming out of the camp of discontent with how they were being treated. It was very much Cullen's team and loyal to Cullen.

Now the negatives of Cullen. Some of them are linked to the positives, for instance the one about the dressing room being onside, there were cases where a bit more of the hardline might have been necessary. Some of the players seemed to enjoy the social side of being local celebrities a lot and they got a loose rein, there were a couple who were probably a bad influence on other players and he never stamped down on that part of the culture.

His passion and intensity could make him tetchy, he was sensitive to criticism and you could even see it sometimes if at a supporters night somebody asked the 'wrong' question, he became snappy. When things were going well he was great but when the team was on a bad run he would get grumpy and kick off a lot about different issues to different people at the club, he likes to interfere with things, have his say on how different departments on the non playing side of the club should be run his way. The best coaches exude a calming aura in times of crisis but I don't think you get that with Cullen, he is more likely to explode and the edginess transfers to everybody else.

Similarly his fierce determination can make him stubborn and inflexible, he likes to be in charge and the buck to stop with him, at Warrington he surrounded himself with yes men in his backroom staff. Maybe because of this, Warrington reached a plateau and never improved the problems which became apparent, particularly the defence. Warrington's defence was always well short of the top teams during Cullen's time, (and still evidently is), which meant we were never able to credibly compete. This was apparent early on in Cullen's time but though the personnel changed, and the quality improved significantly, the defensive problems stayed the same. This says to me problems with the coach's structure.

Cullen's Wire were also a soft target for lower ranked teams - to be fair this was a Warrington characteristic well before he took over, but he never sorted it out. The worst thing was, when you could sense early in a game that Warrington weren't up for it today, we could never get to grips and turn it round.

I thought Cullen did well in 2003, and was taking Warrington forward up till about mid 2006 then things started to slide, the turning point for me was a Challenge Cup defeat to Hull KR who were still in the NL at the time, that highlighted some major problems we had, and with hindsight we should have made a change around then, instead of marking time for another two years where we weren't going forwards under Cullen.

A very good summary and many thanks for posting that, I suppose Cullen being a proud Warrington man suffered more than most when the team were losing and thus had his snappy moments as you put it. In one way i appreciate that as McCormack never got hot under the collar and i believe that was his major problem. When the team perhaps needed a kicking he could never give it. The players we had ultimately became comfortable with Mc Cormack, he was an easy going coach which the players appreciated but at times they did need a kick up the backside something which Cullen can provide.


I would welcome him as coach.

Wow, I think we've found the female version of PEPE...

That seems like a great well thought out well reasoned assessment and makes me even more confident that if he was selected as coach then it would be a decent move.

IIRC Sally is a bloke, albeit one with a fine taste of music!

That was my take on it too.

Be careful though, don't confuse Sally with The Seahorses lyrics, people might get the wrong end of the stick, literally...

Kin ell,seems to be a few Millward stalkers around.

Sorry but I'm still laughing at what Millward did to the Pies when he was coach there.....

3 options for Widnes

1 stick with Stankevitch until the Super league licences come round again
2 Paul Cullen
3 Jon sharp

karl Harrison Dave woods etc and even Millward would be a big no no

I think its funny that a few narrow minded fans dont want Cullen because of his Warrington links...i'm sure a few Wigan fans were the same when Mike Gregory was appointed coach, until he got them to a Grand final of course...

I don't think it's his warrington links at all. It isn't with me. I'm just not sure he can make us a winning team. He had a massive budget at warrington and underachieved year on year.

I also think its because Widnes fans think they are getting a Warrington Reject if you like....

I believe as do many other normal Warrington Rugby fans do that Cullen just lacked that little bit of something to get us to a final and win something...we were not far of I suppose in the end we just got sick of being "dark horses" again..

When Wire fans wanted Cullen replaced it was for the likes of Tony Smith Craig Bellamy Steve Foulkes and that calibre of coach No one wanted Jon Sharp, Karl Harrison, or Dave woods, the odd motion for John Kear was often Muted but the fans first Choice Was Tony Smith we were even promised a world class coach

we got Jimmy Lowes ....!!!

be very careful when dismissing perfectly reasonable coaches.

Dave Woods? Never short of entertainment that's for sure!