I started watching in the early Brian Johnson era, so here is my run down of the coaches in order:
1. Tony SmithEasily the best. Brought the best out of talented but underfiring players like Briers, Bridge, Michael Monaghan and Matt King. He made a big call early in on shipping out Martin Gleeson which set the tone for him being in complete charge. In the early days his signings were superb and by 2011 and 2012 we were a completely dominant unit. The regular season became almost boring because we were just watching a procession of teams get completely smashed off the park. The quality of rugby we played was good - especially when we had Solomona offloading everywhere, but was a bit 'clinical' to be described as great attacking rugby - quick breaks finished off by Myler or Atkins running home from distance and tries scored in the corner from Briers' bombs to wingers.
Three Challenge Cups and two League Leaders Shields represented a level of success most Wire fans had never seen before and could never have dreamed of a few years earlier. We also lost 3 Grand Finals and a Challenge Cup and so there is a sense of frustration that we could have had more. At our peak between 2011 and 2012 we were stopped by an all time great Leeds team which was better experienced at winning big games than us, and our best chance in 2013 was derailed by injuries.
A lot of our senior players left in 2013 and we needed to do a rebuild, and TS never managed this properly. His signings weren't very good apart from Chris Sandow's half season flourish. He brought through a lot of young players but they didn't kick on apart from Currie who was then messed up by injury. As time went on the quality of rugby stagnated and there was an "end of days" feel for a while.
2. Paul CullenRejuvenated the club from a very low ebb and helped drive a different mindset in terms of ambition, not just in the way we saw ourselves but the way we were perceived from the outside. He energised a team that was limping to relegation and secured survival. He got us to leave Wilderspool with dignity - the final year at the old ground when we made the playoffs brought back a positive feel that we hadn't had for about 8 years and meant we moved to the HJ with an optimistic mindset. By 2005, he had us beating top teams and going on a long winning run which we hadn't done for years, and we were playing great rugby too. Cullen was the perfect coach to have when Simon Moran began stepping up the investment, he had the drive, ambition and personality (as well as the media presence) to create the impression that we were a club destined for the top. He brought in most of the players who went on to win trophies under Tony Smith - he wasn't just bringing in big names, he went for talented young players like Grix and Bridge, and he turned Westwood from a mediocre centre to one of the best back rowers in the game.
There were definitely two halves to Cullen's time in charge. First half, up to the point we lost to Hull in the playoffs with Andrew Johns, we had real momentum. After then we went into slow decline. He signed a few players who didn't work out - notably Michael Sullivan, and some of the existing players started to tread water. Cullen wasn't the best at addressing a slide - he could be tetchy when we were under pressure and he had a tendency to try to control everything at the club. He went on a season or two too long.
3. Brian JohnsonCreated a team with a really strong spirit which pushed Wigan right to the limit and only missed out on winning a Championship on points difference. If we had been in position to back him with investment like Bradford and Saints did, rather than losing our best players, we could have been one of the major powers in the early years of SL, so there is a big sense of "what if" about Johnson's time.
We might have rose tinted glasses with Johnson though, because he was a great player. It took him a while to get a good side together, we were inconsistent for a long time and the quality of rugby we played wasn't always great. Some of the long-standing problems we've seen with Wire teams were definitely present through Johnson's reign. I don't remember ever feeling like the fans wanted him out though, unlike the others. But like some others, there was a sense of him having gone on too long by the time he left.
4. Steve PriceDid well for about a season and a third. Reached two finals in his first season, and made us better organised and more resilient, and we knocked out a seemingly unstoppable Saints side in the playoffs. Started the next year well with Blake Austin in sparkling form. Then it all seemed to go wrong. The rest of the league had worked us out and there was no Plan B. When the momentum went against us in a game we had no way to stop it and we were prone to going on long runs of bad form. On top of that the rugby was grindingly dull. We had enough talented players to keep making the playoffs but we were easy beats when we got there and bad playoff exits became a hallmark of Price's time.
Price does get bumped up a few places in this list on the back of one highlight, he won the Challenge Cup, beating Saints in a game where Saints threw everything at us and we stood firm. That one game summed up all the best of the Price team that we had seen in the first year - well organised and resilient under pressure. It was the only time it really surfaced after the first year but it was the perfect game to do it. In years to come we might start to look on Price more favourably because he is one of a small number of Wire coaches to have won a major trophy.
5. Darryl Van de VeldeWas in charge during a turbulent time off the field and started and ended his reign with the club in chaos. The fans never really took to him, he could seem mopey and negative and there was a sense of him creating a clique of big Aussie signings and allowing a casual culture at the club - this was the peak era of hearing stories of players being seen out in town partying.
But DVDV is the coach off this list who I felt more generous to with the benefit of hindsight. We'd just sold Iestyn Harris before he arrived and his first move was to use part of the transfer fee to bring in an 18 year old Lee Briers from Saints. One of the most significant decisions in club history! He also had us playing some exciting rugby and we did score a lot of points with him - despite usually shipping in more. Even before Allan Langer arrived, we were scoring freely with Briers, Toa and Hunte and when Langer was here we always had a shot of turning over even the top teams.
6. Jon DorahyOn the basis of results he did quite well - considering the utter meltdown we'd had in the second half of the Centenary season, finishing 5th in the first season of Super League was better than expected and he stabilised things for a while. He found a couple of talented players in obscure situations - a teenage Toa Kohe-Love in NZ and Richard Henare playing for Carlisle. But that 5th place hid the fact we were well behind the top teams and we actually lost more games that we won that season. I always had a sense that Dorahy wasn't that good a coach. He'd been Wigan coach the year we nearly beat them to the title and you could see he alienated their dressing room and by the time Dorahy's second season started you could see things were about to fall apart.
7. Darryl PowellHe was brought in with a big job to do in clearing out a squad of talented underachievers who seemed to be stuck in comfort zone, and it wasn't surprising that his first year involved dressing room unrest and disappointing results. The board backed him with signings and he started his second season with a very powerful pack and the team started like a house on fire before falling away. As we stand we are at a crossroads and the jury is very much out on Powell, and is leaning towards a negative verdict unless he turns things round.
8. David PlangeHe was a promising up and coming coach who had been successful with Hunslet. He had a good eye for a player and when money was made available after Steve Anderson left, he brought in Ben Westwood and Nat Wood, plus Graeme Appo from the French league and Danny Halliwell on loan. Halliwell scored some important tries for us and those other three were significant signings in the Cullen team which followed Plange. Unfortunately he had taken over a ship that was rapidly sinking and he wasn't able to stop it, and he never got another chance as head coach so left the game. He did get us to perform in the two key games against our relegation rivals Wakey and Salford, which were crucial come the end of the season.
9. James LowesAfter Cullen who had been a fantastic ambassador for the club with the media and a very charismatic presence, Lowes was the complete opposite. He always looked scruffy like he wasn't bothered and he came across terribly in interviews, all his press conferences he seemed to have a smug sarcastic manner like he viewed himself as superior to the media and was enjoying his own private jokes. He never seemed the right fit for the job of Wire coach and always felt like a temporary appointment. He did make two significant signings before he left in Mick Higham and Garreth Carvell.
10. Steve AndersonAn odd appointment and clearly not our first choice after we had been publicly stood up by Neil Kelly. He talked a good game and obviously was well regarded in Australia but things fell apart from the first game. Didn't seem to connect with the players, had left them underprepared physically and was basically our version of Liz Truss getting outlasted by a lettuce.
