You are quite correct about the qualifications however Plange had taken a team to a final before getting the Warrington gig. I'm no huge fan of Plange but he was more critical to Warrington remaining in SL than PC was based on league points.



Anyway I welcomed the PC appointment at the time, I thought he was the real deal as we all did. Sadly he wasn't and isn't, gift of the gab or not.

Re: Plange vs Cullen and who saved us etc. comes down to the following Question:



Despite Plange's better history of W/L ratios, would we have won the two games which kept us in SL without [ithe[/i, or [ia[/i change of coach?



In my own personal view, we wouldn't have won any of them and we would have gone down. Cullen coming in changed the outlook completely at the end of that year and thus I attribute us being saved to him and his influence.

Cullen coming in took the feet off the net.



71, regardless of the amount of games he won, he did what he was brought in to do; prevent relegation. I couldn't see Plange achieving that.

I have a lot of time for Cull and was sickened by the cr@p talked by many 'fans' during his period as coach - so much so that I gave up posting for a while. Unfortunately society being what it is today and 'fans' being what they are, they can say what they like, when they like with very little reproach (unless it's defamatory and even then.....).



Yes he should have gone before he did but some of the posters on here were just plain out of order - and I would suggest many (but by no means all) with very little understanding of the game.



We all pay our cash to see the team play and want them to do well and we have a right to air our views - but that's no different to all fans in all sports. If there's reasoned argument for views, again I have no problem with that but far too many times there was criticism without reasoned argument and that's what makes me really frustrated with forum like this.



Tony Smith is a good coach - and I'll admit I'm more impressed with him since I've seen him working with Warrington close up than I was when he was with Leeds etc. (I did not think it was a first rate appointment - and I was wrong). But even he had lots of critics at Leeds and I'm sure eventually 'fans being 'fans' will turn on him.

Luckily he knows that and - only my belief - he walked before being pushed at Leeds.



Everyone's expectation will be high for this year - even more so than in the previous 7+ years because the team won a trophy last year, arguably we've strengthened and we've got a good crop on youngsters coming through. But I really hope that at the first sign of trouble fans don't start to call for heads to roll.

When you look back, you have to realise Cullen took us to a position to where we were one season away from winning a major trophy, that's not a bad achievement. IMO you have to give the man credit, because without his ambition in 2002 we wouldn't be here today. I'm sure everyone would have loved it if he had the ability to coach Wire to that CC win and it would have been the perfect fairytale, rags to riches story.

I think that's the main reason some of us stayed his side so long (on here anyway).

He's a very good coach and a real good bloke is Cull, were delighted to have him.

We've done this a million times before, it's difficult to find something to say about Cull that hasn't been said before. You churn out the same stuff, top man, passionate, blah blah.



I think we've all formed our ideas on him now and we're stuck to them. I think he was key to us staying in SL, the 2/6 is 2/4 for me as the other two were dead-rubber. Some folk, Wires 71 will say that's irrelevant, and I'd understand why, but to me, he got the points in the bank, we were safe, and if the players put the cue on the rack, then sort of 'so be it ... mission accomplished.'



If it was Cull top trumps, you'd be like ...



Effort : 10

Passion : 10

Attacking Coaching : 9

Defensive Coaching : 3

Media Savvyness : 9

Recruitment : 9

Tactical Awareness : 5

Youth Promotion



ETC



Overall : 7



Which was fine, fine in 2002, fine up until 2005. Then from 2006 Onwards, probably not fine really.



Do I think he'd do well in SL at another club ? Yeah, why not. If I was say, a Hull fan, I'd rather have Cull than Agar any day of the week.

No way 9....Cullen signed far too many players who didn't deliver what we expected from them, Sullivan, Reardon, Cardiss, Wilshere, Richie Barnett jnr, Stevens, Bracek. Also you could probably say Rauhihi, Johnson and Swann were overall not what we had hoped despite having their moments.



There are also quite a few Cullen signings, who were considered disappointments when Cullen was coach, but started to do well after Tony Smith took over - Monaghan, King, Louis Anderson. Simon Grix and Bridge also look better signings now than they did when Cullen was coach.



Best signing Cullen made was Martin Gleeson, he was the best centre in Britain and played the best form of his career with us under Cullen. Other good signings were Fa'afili, Leikvoll, Forshaw and Morley, and actually getting Wainwright back was a good signing as well.



Lima, Parker and Vinnie Anderson - mixed bag.

Kohe-Love and Sibbit - not as good as they were first time around.



Overall Cullen gets a 6 out of 10 for recruitment for me.

On this one I think you are doing Cullen a disservice. Riley, Cooper, Harrison were all brought through well by Cullen, he definitely took an interest in bringing through the young players and gave lots of players a chance. 7 out of 10 for me.

Is Grose a deliberate or mistaken omission?

forgot about Grose, where would you put him....probably in the good signings, although a bit of a mixed bag in the end, he had 2 good seasons, 1 outstanding season, 1 bad season and 1 average season