Food for thought.

IMO, that Cullen side, with Smith coaching it for a couple of seasons, wins trophies. Eventually, it did. Sadly, the players were prime movers in the Cullen Out movement. We're seeing the same, now, at Leicester City.

Now, not for a second am I suggesting we're looking at player revolt, just a coach with an "I'm not listening" attitude to our clearly evident problems.

We lack "edge". We've almost become nice. We have a pack that has an "after you, Claude" instead of a "get in amongst them" attitude, and an (expensive) 3/4 line that's not doing it's job.

Smith now has a BIG problem on his hands. We're a game or two away from it being a crisis. He starts to REALLY earn his money, now.

I always say Cullen was let down be Chris Bridge...otherwise things might have worked out differently.

I've already gone and said I'm happy to see TS go...I don't care if we do win silverware this season or not.

Time for a fresh approach.

The difference is Tony Smith finished top of the league with the team on the left and won Challenge Cups with the team on the right, whereas Cullen missed out on the playoffs with the team on the right.

At the point Cullen left our fans were laying in to him for poor recruitment bringing in players like Rauhihi, King and Monaghan who were regarded as flops.

Everything that has a beginning, has an ending.

I think you'll find it doesn't.

Welcome to philosophy corner

There were some fantastic players and leaders in that team smith inherited... Towards the end Cullen just didn't know what to do with them and it all fell apart.

A new coach and a new approach to things freshened the place up. We got behind the team, the players responded and we enjoyed some challenge cup success.

Its just a shame that the next coach that comes in here wont have such an easy task to turn things around.

Cullen's down fall was the naughtiness of Bridge and the failure of M Monaghan to play halfback in the British style. In all Cull had 3 former hookers in succession all to play scrum half. The only 7 we had bagged let him down like Bridge did.... Andrew Johns.

Cull ran out of time...I still think had Bridge or Andrew Johns for filled their contractual agreement....Cull would have got us that Wembley visit himself instead of TS riding Cullen's surf wave.

Yes and when Cullen was here, that business about signing hookers to play scrum half was held against him as an example of bad recruitment, along with signing relatively big name players who didn't live up to their reputations or feats with earlier clubs, eg Reardon, Cardiss, Johnson, Swann, or bringing back Toa. Then there were players that started off well but tailed off: Grose, Lima, Parker. And some of his signings like Richie Barnett, Sullivan and bringing back Warren Stevens were regarded as shockers, as was the decision to let Sid Domic go so we could re-sign Appo who then had two seasons treading water whilst Domic went on to have three more years as one of the best imports in SL.

Cullen was blamed by a section of our fans for "ruining Kevin Penny" because he played him outside Matt King or because he dropped him after a run of bad form and that was said to have ruined his confidence.

This narrative that has been created with hindsight that Cullen did all the hard work in creating a side on the verge of greatness and Smith just rode on the coattails to glory is a myth. Also if you want to attribute recruitment, some of our most significant players of the Challenge Cup wins were signed by DVDV (Briers), Plange (Westwood) and Lowes (Carvell and Higham).

I'd pick the Tony Smith team. Think all of the Cullen team bar a couple have retired, so don't think they'd shape up too well at the moment.

Cullen had a side a long way short of full cap unlike TS.
Wood wasn't a bad signing under the cap short fall.
Gambling Sullivan was a mistake but he was totally different at 9. Monaghan wasn't Cullen's call, let down by druggie Johns, johns recommend him to cover his ass. Johns once again let's PC down! Monas is not a hb for the British game.

Some shirty stuff here. Johns contracted for three games and played them. Michael Monaghan ended up being a great signing. Paul Cullen in the end produced a team that could play very well on occasion, but could not win trophies. Tony Smith took virtually the same team and won trophies with it. That's the difference.

I'm guessing he means that johns was supppsed to come back to play a full season for us, but an injury forced his retirement.

So the argument for Cullen is that he would have won trophies if only Andrew Johns had been in his team. Woulda, coulda. You could make these arguments for Smith - if Sandow had not walked out on us we would have won the treble this year - we were close enough last year. I don't know where this stuff about Cullen being well short of the salary cap came from. There's no way we were fitting in all his big signings under cap and certainly at the end of his time we were a full cap: see the quote from Simon Moran at the end of this article in the Guardian. www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/spo ... ying_call/ I agree that Nat Wood was a good signing in his time, he was brought in by David Plange though, from Wakefield in 2002 along with Ben Westwood.

So the argument for Cullen is that he would have won trophies if only Andrew Johns had been in his team. Woulda, coulda. You could make these arguments for Smith - if Sandow had not walked out on us we would have won the treble this year - we were close enough last year. I don't know where this stuff about Cullen being well short of the salary cap came from. There's no way we were fitting in all his big signings under cap and certainly at the end of his time we were a full cap: see the quote from Simon Moran at the end of this article in the Guardian. www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/spo ... ying_call/ I agree that Nat Wood was a good signing in his time, he was brought in by David Plange though, from Wakefield in 2002 along with Ben Westwood.

Paying John's for 3 games shows a £40k shortfall in the cap for starters!

For everything Tony Smith has done for the club, he deserves to be judged over the full season, not after 3 games.

which full season would you like to choose? 2013, 2014, 2015 or 2016?

Hehe good return of serve

2013 - 1 pt off topping the table, GF Runners up

2014 - 3 pts of topping the table, lost close GF SF to Wigan

2016 - Won LLS, CC and GF Runners Up

Okay, so 2015 wasn't great, but were the other seasons really that bad?!

it was a bit tongue in cheek in all fairness.

But for me there has been a decline in squad quality and the quality of the rugby on offer over those years.. Yes we managed to scoot our way to 2 finals last season, but we lost them both and played some dire rugby.... But im not fussed really if we win trophys.

For example, this current Wigan side are absolutely terrible to watch. But history will simply say they won the big games when they mattered. The complete opposite of us.

Collectively that's a lot of failure Shiny. Nearly wins you nowt.

Super League as a whole has been in decline for quite a few years now. We're hardly the only ones who are much weaker on paper than what we were two or three years ago.

Didn't we have a very good chance of beating Leeds iirc in the GF till everyone's favourite pantomime villain started trouble in midfield & disrupted our attack.Then Leeds went up our end & scored again. ?

Or the Childs and Silverwood (?) show in the 2011 Semi Final.. luck does have a lot to do it, but at some point we have to stop finding excuses and win the darn thing.

We've played some great rugby since TS took over and won a fair few trophies without winning the GF.
I want a GF win - even if it has to be ugly.
But I wouldn't want us playing crap rugby all the time.
(Sorry but I hate the way Wigan play even though they've won lots without arguably being the best team - it's an old chestnut of mine).