Cullen : Sun May 13, 2012 6:11 pm  

I've seen a lot of people on TIW wanting Paul Cullen out, mainly posters a with personal agenda against the bloke, so my two questions are:

1) Would we be in Super League without Paul Cullen?

&

2) Do you still want Paul Cullen at our club?

Re: Cullen : Mon May 14, 2012 12:51 pm  

Paddy_88 wrote:

I've seen a lot of people on TIW wanting Paul Cullen out, mainly posters a with personal agenda against the bloke, so my two questions are:

From what I've seen the reasons people don't want PC at Widnes is because
a) He is a wire and some people have been just waiting for an opportunity to turn on him
b) Some 'incidents' that involved drinking a long time ago and made up rumours about stuff going on at Warrington. These same people are trying to insinuate that he is encouraging a drink culture at the club now (despite there being a strict drinking policy in place).
c) People now feel sorry for DB after it was revealed that he wasn't supposed to be a head coach of a SL side and have looked for someone else to blame.

1) Would we be in Super League without Paul Cullen?

Possibly... although personally I think it was a minor miracle that we managed to win the 2009 NRC. Not just the Ben Black drop, but the squad we started with wasn't great. We had players that wouldn't travel over for coaching. We had two players taking up almost a quarter of the salary cap! There's no doubting that the players HE brought in on loan contributed massively to us winning that and we really dropped off once some of those players were recalled back to their clubs. Let's not forget that Barrow were illegally throwing money at players and spending more on their squad than us, Fax's team were 'a country mile' better than anyone else. 2010 was a disastrous year. PC obviously had very serious personal issues to be contending with and our injuries that year were about as bad as I've ever known it.

2) Do you still want Paul Cullen at our club?

I do for the time being. I agree with V4E on the other board that there hasn't been enough time yet to evaluate how he is performing in this DOR rule. I've been a strong advocate for there being three distinct roles at our club in terms of a coach, a DOR type role (to deal with the administrative side) and someone in charge of player welfare. What's more important is that there is a proper link between the playing staff department and the club board.
Whilst people knock PC's visits to Australia I believe that he has a good number of contacts over in Australia following a number of introductions made by Andrew Johns and I have heard that Andrew Johns made two stops in the UK recently (a few months back now). One to Warrington about a major signing for next year and another one to Widnes to talk through some potential targets for 2013. I genuinely think all this talk of other head coaches being put off by PC being DOR is rubbish having heard legitimate reasons for some of the contenders having turned us down last April. I think the situation would be very different if Noble had been appointed for example and Noble would report directly into the board rather than into PC. The current setup is very much there as a result of us having DB as coach.
I am looking to give PC until at least the start of next season before I make any sort of judgement call.
We have been incredibly unfortunate this season but the finger of blame points at our coach for the time being.

Re: Cullen : Mon May 14, 2012 7:44 pm  

Dr Chim Richalds wrote:

I do for the time being. I agree with V4E on the other board that there hasn't been enough time yet to evaluate how he is performing in this DOR rule. I've been a strong advocate for there being three distinct roles at our club in terms of a coach, a DOR type role (to deal with the administrative side) and someone in charge of player welfare. What's more important is that there is a proper link between the playing staff department and the club board.
Whilst people knock PC's visits to Australia I believe that he has a good number of contacts over in Australia following a number of introductions made by Andrew Johns and I have heard that Andrew Johns made two stops in the UK recently (a few months back now). One to Warrington about a major signing for next year and another one to Widnes to talk through some potential targets for 2013. I genuinely think all this talk of other head coaches being put off by PC being DOR is rubbish having heard legitimate reasons for some of the contenders having turned us down last April. I think the situation would be very different if Noble had been appointed for example and Noble would report directly into the board rather than into PC. The current setup is very much there as a result of us having DB as coach.
I am looking to give PC until at least the start of next season before I make any sort of judgement call.
We have been incredibly unfortunate this season but the finger of blame points at our coach for the time being.

I have written the same over on the TIW board but the problem with Cull is that you cant evaluate his impact in the director of rugby role.

I do think its almost like an invisible role in that blame seems to get shifted everywhere apart from at him. None of us know what the hell it is he even does or how far his infleunce extends on to first team matters though and that is the problem and why he gets so much stick.

Ultimately people dont understand the role and they look at the role in action at Salford and particularly in football where it doesnt seem to be the greatest of successes.

He might be doing an absolutely immense job behind the scenes but the club dont communicate that or anything to the fans about what his role actually entails. You cant blame anyone for giving him stick because people dont know any better and they just lump him together with Betts as a contributor to our failure.

Im yet to be convinced about the need for the role in any sport and with those in power at the top of our club devoid of any previous experience in the running of a sports club it worries me to what extent Cull has power over rugby decisions that are made.

Re: Cullen : Tue May 15, 2012 11:13 pm  

I like Cull very passionate about the club and would hope he would or should be helping out Betts with the Clubs issues at present got lots of coaching experiance especially in super league and what we cant forget paul put practically the squad together at warrington TONY Smith doing the fine tuning but i still blame Soc for the clubs predicament think yes a lot of experiance in his own feild but not at highest level of sport and you cant go int the so called poor man sport without having to keep going into his pocket bit Green on that part look at john wilkinson at salford 30 years of spending with little sucess But ts his passion for his beloved club Not the Money !

Re: Cullen : Sun May 20, 2012 7:10 pm  

Pretty much agree with all that. It seems PC is being used as a scapegoat by fans because they are frustrated with the way things have turned out so far this season. They need someone to blame and the flavour of the month is Cullen. No doubt it will be back to Betts in a couple of weeks.