Cullen fights for his destiny

When Paul Cullen took his first training session at Warrington last week, he was immediately reminded that he was in a very different environment from what he had been used to at Whitehaven.

After his two years in exile on the Cumbrian coast, the new Wolves coach found himself with almost an embarrassment of resources. "There were 29 at training and another three out on loan,'' Cullen says. "The whole lot have got to be reassessed, but my only policy for my first game will be to go with the most experienced.''

That first game is just down the road at Widnes this after-noon, and offers Cullen an immediate yardstick as to what must be achieved if Warrington are to avoid the ignominy of relegation from Super League. After today, they have matches against Wigan, Halifax and Castleford, before the crunch games in the last two weeks of the season, against fellow strugglers Salford and Wakefield.

It will be tough, but Cullen will be trying to shift the focus of the club away from the spectre of relegation. "I'm just trying to move the whole psychology away from the outcome and towards the process,'' he says. "The constant source of conversation here has been doom and gloom. Everyone is choking on the threat of relegation and no one wants to try anything because they don't want to be the one who makes a mistake.''

Warrington supporters have always seen Cullen as the man who could create a more positive mood within the club. A famously aggressive back-rower, who played well above his weight, he typified the team's spirit through the Eighties and early Nineties.

The succession to the role for which he always seemed destined has not been straightforward. When he left almost two years ago, he was disillusioned with the way the club was run and, when the post became available a year later, he was not enthusiastic. One reason was the job that he had started at Whitehaven, where a team based on young local players had begun to turn the club's fortunes around.

"The experience was worth every mile I had to travel,'' he says. "I needed to be away from Warrington for a couple of years, but this time I could not walk away from the fight.''

And a fight is what it will certainly be. Warrington might have a point or two more than their immediate rivals, but they have a mar-ginally tougher run-in to the end of the season. As a Warrington player, though, Cullen loved a battle. The time is right for him to roll up his sleeves and get stuck into this one.