A problem many of the Wire teams I've watched over three and a half decades, including some talented ones, is an underlying mental fragility. Once momentum starts going against us we find it very hard to break and we get mired into long losing runs.
When Cullen was coach I remember on several occasions after a defeat he'd bring up an earlier defeat as the reason, like "that Cup defeat against St Helens absolutely knocked the stuffing out of us". It's the kind of thing I couldn't imagine a Saints or Leeds coach ever saying - admitting that one bad loss would affect us weeks down the track.
It was a big part of the Steve Price era too. You knew if we had one or two bad losses that was it, we'd win about 2 of the next 10 games. No ability to turn it round.
But when you look at teams like Brian McDermott's Leeds or Shaun Wane's Wigan, usually they'd have a bad month or so of form mid season and their forums would be full of posts from their fans saying McDermott out/Wane out. But you knew that by the time August came round they would be starting off on an ominous winning run.
Now is Sam Burgess's Wire like the softer Cullen and Price teams of the past?
Or are we like McDermott's Leeds and Wane's Wigan?
I'm sure Burgess himself would regard the idea of players going into a funk and feeling sorry for themselves because of previous defeats as being ridiculous.
