Slightly late with this one, it was May 26th 2008 that Cullen resigned, after losing at home to bottom placed Castleford, our 6th defeat in 7.

Now that a decade has passed, how do we assess the Cullen era now? It spanned nearly 6 years (August 2002 to May 200icon_cool.gif, a time where the club was transformed. We moved to a new stadium, Simon Moran became the majority owner and we moved from scrapping at the basement for signings and selling our best players to making statement signings on a regular basis. The whole ambition of the club changed. We played better rugby in the Cullen era than we had since the 1980s, and had some sensational victories. A good number of the most memorable games at the HJ for me came from this era, even more so than the peak Smith era where we were an excellent side but more clinical and ruthless and lacked some of the emotion of the days of Nat Wood and co.

Overall I think Cullen was exactly what was needed at the time he took over, but he probably stayed a year too long. In his last two and a half seasons we were standing still despite the playing roster being bolstered by more and more top players.

On recruitment, Cullen built the bulk of the team that went on to win Challenge Cups under Smith, but I wouldn't overplay the credit here as he didn't do this by signing unknown gems but by splashing the cash of the new investment on established stars. A lot of Cullen signings seemed like good additions when they signed but didn't deliver up to expectations (Cardiss, Kohe-Love in his second spell, Swann, Parker, Sullivan, Rauhihi, Reardon, Barnett, V Anderson, Johnson) plus some whose value wasn't realised until after Cullen had left (Grix, Harrison, L Anderson, King, M Monaghan). His good signings were Grose (for the first 3 of his 5 seasons), Fa'afili, Gleeson, Leikvoll, Bridge, Morley, Hicks.

On youth development, he showed great faith in Chris Riley who went on to be a very successful try scorer for us, and brought through Kevin Penny although subsequently seemed to prefer Riley over him. He brought Mike Cooper in to the side as well. But some of the other Cullen projects ended up disappointing like Pickersgill and Bracek.

Amongst existing players, Paul Wood became a top SL prop under Cullen, Ben Westwood went from an unconvincing centre/winger to a dominant forward, and Lee Briers matured a lot and went from being frustratingly inconsistent to one of SL's elite halfbacks.

Cullen brought some life back to the terraces. He made us exciting and enjoyable to watch. The passivity we had had before he came soon went, we became a team who used the ball and looked to score points. He also - at first - instilled a greater fighting spirit in the team (which we are also seeing this year with the arrival of Price), although this drifted towards the end of his reign, after Nat Wood left and the team lost some of the earlier identity and became more a transit lounge for players who had left big clubs to do a couple of years at Warrington before moving on again or retiring.

The best days under Cullen were the entire 2003 season - where we left Wilderspool with dignity after a few years of being soft at home and an angry mood in the terraces - and the long winning run through the summer of 2005. That was the first time since the Davies era 12 years earlier where we had known what it was like to win for an extended period, it changed the whole mood and ambition, culminating in the signing of Andrew Johns, and from then on it felt that Warrington were on a journey that would end up with silverware.

The Johns experiment ended early with that shock home defeat to Hull in the playoffs, and we were never the same again under Cullen, despite a few high points in one off games, notably the playoff win away at Leeds in 2006. I wonder whether deep down some of the new signings who had played at bigger clubs didn't really rate or respect him, and he wasn't in control as much as he was in his earlier seasons when the team was largely former youth players who he had known from the U21s, plus overseas players with low egos and great attitudes like Wood, Domic and Burns. I started having doubts after the Challenge Cup defeat to Hull KR in mid 2006, and felt we needed to make a change midway through 2007.

All in all a very interesting and relevant part of our history, would be interesting to see how people regard the Cullen era now.

The start of the Cullen era was exactly what we needed at the time, and we are forever in his debt for keeping us as the only club never to have spent time outside the top division.

However, the culture of the club was never addressed and we just became a poor-to-mediocre club that had money rather than teetering on brankruptcy. Cullen was clearly not the answer to the future and although I’ve got the utmost respect for him as a player, local legend and attacking coach, I never felt we would become a big club in his time. I do miss some of those spectacular tries though... shame we let two in for every one we scored.

Oh, and he built a team of great players by the time he left... a team that needed Tony Smith to gel and motivate. That’s why Price and co currently deserve some credit as they’ve assembled this 2018 squad quickly and desperately and managed to get them to perform.

That was a superb post Sally.

2 of those memorable SL games of all time came under PC tender aa head.
Johns vs Leeds debut.
Loss/100 min non-stop barmy army chant vs Wigan.

There are also 2 Cullen player games that are memorable too....
Loss Penalty against PC knees vs Wigan/Russell Smith
Loss vs Wigan/Goodwin WW111.


Cullen installed 'Cullenism!' The Wire pride and passion back into our club at a level I've never known and we still have that ethic now.
I can’t think of a better guy to do the Chairman job here

Was a draw wasn’t it?

Does he have any involvement at the club now? Other ham handing out the odd player jersey for debuts / landmark appearance?

I wrote it at about 5am. It's probably all bollox.

The time is irrelevant.



Just messing, your input recently has been mostly good.

We shouldn’t underestimate his little-known work for the Warrington Clandestine Services either. He went undercover as an agent over enemy lines and helped prevent any potential uprising of Widnes RLFC

I thought Cullen was a great bloke who did so much for the club. I thought he was unlucky with injuries (but my memory can't allow me to be specific) to key players.
I was disgusted with how he was treated (by certain sections of the crowd) at the end of his reign. I hated the "boo boys" and the idea that you pay yer money therefore you can hurl abuse. I remember well (as does Paul Cullen) the interception try by Luke Dorn which sealed his fate.

I remember it as the outragious slow motion pass Monaghan.

It is often forgotten that Monaghan played scrum half when he arrived. He gave a few interception tries away.
Superb hooker.

Just to challenge the beatification. Idolised him as a player (still do) but never rated him as a coach. Win ratio of 42% put's him way down the list of Warrington coaches who could have only dreamt of the finances available. A year at Widnes before being moved aside for Denis Betts to never coach again.

Interesting post to look back on Sally. Obviously the involvement of SJM and his backing was massive for us at a time when it looked like we could be going to the wall at Wilderspool but Cullen deserves much credit.

The Anderson and Plange era was the most depressing and desperate time of watching the Wire in 40+ years for me. We were woeful and couldn’t buy a win until Cullen came in and saved us when relegation seemed a certainty for me. Was it wins over Castleford and Halifax?

We watched some great players under Cullen and some not so good but i think it was a definite turning point in Wire history. I will be forever grateful to him that we wasn’t relegated in 2002.

Also James Lowes proved that money alone doesn’t get you very far post Cullen. Tony Smith was the first world class coach we ever had in my opinion and I’m hopeful that Steve Price can be the second.

Youth development probably wasn’t the best under the Cullen era and he decided to buy in good young players with potential from other clubs but maybe it was needs must at the time. I’m hopeful that is being addressed now with the likes of Livett, Philbin & Patton.

It is often overlooked that Cullen won two games in 2002, whereas under Plange we won five. Including Leeds and Hull away. I'd suggest some gratitude is extended his way.

But in truth what really saved us from relegation was the signings of Nathan Wood, Ben Westwood, Danny Halliwell and Richie Mathers mid-season. Without them we would have been down for sure.

Didn't Tony Smith sign Mathers ,a few months after after Richie nearly decapitated Matt King ?

I wonder if scrum half signings weren't his undoing? Sullivan (Dick Turpin if ever I saw one) and Monaghan. Both clearly hookers but allowed to dictate where they played (as I understand it).
I know there was a lot more to his demise than that though.
For me the best part of Cullen was that when we passed the ball more than once in a move, or in heavy traffic, I wasn't watching through my fingers expecting us to stuff up.
It was an interesting ride and with hindsight he stayed a little bit too long. Still look fondly on his reign though, whereas I don't suppose Saints fans can think of ANYTHING positive to say about their former player as a coach , take a bow Mr Cunningham.

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.

No pal I don't think you're giving Plange enough credit. He wasn't the organ grinder for our demise...that was Anderson.
It's been the norm for many a assistant to take over. He did the maths weakened Wakefield and masterminded the win at Hull.

OK we needed more but Plange as a stand alone was no failure.

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.