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Paul Cullen

PAUL Cullen is taking no consolation from the fact that Wolves' only defeats so far have come in some of the most difficult fixtures of the entire campaign.

Wolves have won the matches against teams they would be favourites to beat but have been beaten at St Helens and Bradford.

Few teams will come away from Knowsley Road or Odsal with two points this season but that does not lessen the blow for Cullen, who was desperately disappointed to lose at Bradford on Sunday.

"We haven't gone into these games thinking we can afford to win these matches and lose at St Helens or lose at Bradford," he said.

"We were bitterly disappointed to a man that we didn't come home from Bradford with two points.

"We were probably more disappointed that we kept on pushing the pass in the game and couldn't revert to a completion, kick and chase and play with more patience than actually losing the game.

"We've had good success from getting out of the blocks very quickly in matches, scoring a lot of points early on and then having the ability - apart from St Helens - to hang on to good and well-taken leads.

"We created five or six really good scoring chances against Bradford in the opening 20 minutes and only took one of them.

"The issue for us was that someone else kept pushing a pass in a different area of the field. They're all virtually in the Bradford quarter.

"We were pleased with our shape, structure and attacking principles but bitterly disappointed with that final pass that just didn't stick for us on the day. But we're probably more disappointed that someone else kept doing it.

"Even when we wanted to rein that in at half time, we got back out there and then another player has taken a gamble early in the tackle count and put the ball on the floor.

"Bradford played the conditions and played their field far better than we did. They haven't pushed a pass at all in 80 minutes, they stayed at the ruck, kept knocking the sets off, their completion rate was into the high 80s and they just played behind the long kicking game of Paul Deacon. It worked for them.

"We had the ability to play both of those types of football in one game. We went out fast and we moved the ball wide and it kept getting put down. That was the disappointment for us.

"Bradford didn't make great yardage, we handled their big pack very well throughout the game.

"We were pleased with that, we got good numbers in and were reasonably disciplined.

"There were 17 penalties, which is encouraging under the current circumstances!

"Seven against us and 10 against Bradford, so we were better than them in that aspect.

"Where they were better than us was the ability of their players to play the conditions and the field better than we did."

12:00pm Thursday 20th March 2008

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