You cant go past Christian Cullen ! Hes a Legend

Billy Slater!!

What a gun!!

Carlton this is a Rugby Union thread...

Cullen is definitely 1 of the best. Should have made a poll for this. Other FB's i think would be in contention are J Robinson, C Latham, M Muliaina & P Montgomery.

cullen for me to

but latham and mongomery come close

and robinson and muliana not far behind

cullen hands down #1,
latham easily #2 and and mayb mils 3rd

Cullum for me
2nd maybe latham

Cullen Definitely #1

Latham is awesome, but how about that French guy from the '87 world cup - can't recall his name though...

Certainly not the best ever but Dempsey's (i think it was him) performance against australia this year at the Telstra Dome was pretty impressive. Cullen would have to have been the best though

u gotta wonder, cullens named as top full back by all here (cept for the errant league contribution), so what was going thru mitchell and deans minds when they dropped him?

as an aside i remember one columnist stating that the highest accolade about cullens dropping is how many fullbacks it took to replace him. I think there were 3, McDonald, Blair and then eventually Mils, and then they had McDonald in the centres anyway which cullen coulda covered better and mortlock wouldnt of had a field day on our NZ collecvtiv a55es. do u think deans and mitchell knew that a little known player (who was playin 12 then) called Carter wasnt a too bad at kicking goals?

sorry i'm still bitter bout cullens dropping, i reckon it was a bigger screw over than the bringBakBuck debacle.

I was jus beginning to enjoy cullen at the centres when they moved him back. cully played a lot of centre before he played for the canes. played at school and for the centralVikings (manawatu and hawkes bay combined i think). his defensive work was that much better cos he was able to get more hits in.

downside was that he didnt have time to gel in the spot before being moved again. reckon he woulda gone on to be a vital centre cos he had all the power, big accurate pass at sprint, strength, speed, nous and a huge get out of jail kick.

he may have lost a lot of acceleration when he got injured but he still shoulda been an AB

i do agree though that they shouldnt of moved him becos of goldie. goldie was a great player but cullen was the better fullback, not to mention that goldie was going thru some huge emotional issues with his dad passing away, that he wasnt in the right mindset. any other point in goldies career and i'm sure he woulda done fine, but right at that moment was the worst possible timing.

Gr8 post Mania. I like how you voice your opinion no matter what. Class forum member imo.

The whole Cullen + World Cup 03 thing was just ridiculous. At 1st it was stupid how they left him out of the squad, and then they bought in Atiga for cover. That was surely Cullen's spot. IMO if Cullen was there we would have had a better chance at winning.

Yeah - after the whole injury with Cullen, people were baying for him to be out cause he wasn't the best in the world anymore - forget that he was still best in the country...

Well its obiviously Christian Cullen, probalely the most known rugby player in history. That famous he has horses named right after him all over the world.

thanx kromyD, i have a passion for rugby that jus carries me away...and probably too late to state, but dont get me started on cullen. more f@#ked than buck.

i'm still puzzled with the whole atiga getting called up thing. for starters atiga was a jafa so how come he was getting called into a predominantly cantebury ABs? seemed to me that they grabbed him jus to use up their (deans and mitchell) WC budget. atiga was never going to make the bench. they got him for his kickin abilities but carter was already in the team.

as panterus stated cullen wasnt the best in the world at that time (have to give it to latham then despite him being new on the block at that time. easily latham over mattBurke back then) but he was the best in NZ. i mean mils has been an awesome custodian since he took the jersey, but cullen, d4m the rollsRoyce of FBs. how many more tries woulda he have gotten to make his record an even truer achievement to what it became.

gotta say i'm not a deans fan after him and mitchell did that to cullen ....and merhts, taineRandell, antonOliver etc etc etc

Good call Kromy - a lot of my earlier comments re: Rugby came from this guy - he certainly knows his stuff.

Agree mania - my anti-deans sentiment really does date back to that screwjob.

I wasn't really following Rugby so much back then, but I remember it happening. And like mania said - imagine how much higher his test and try tally could've been had he been taken care of better.

Along these lines - any of you guys had a chance to read Cully's book? Interesting stuff there... he talks about one of his first one-on-one meetings with Mitchell where he was expecting to discuss his future in the team, what he needed to work on etc.

Instead Mitchell sits down and starts rambling on about the positioning of Cullens thumb when he grips the ball. A lumbering ex-No.8 talking to one of the best running fullbacks ever to pull on boots about how to hold a ball! What a bloody numb nuts.

Always thought Mitchell was grossly overrated as a coach. Couldnt have been happier when his mumbo jumbo circus was kicked to the curb after 03.