Christian Cullen: is he pants or what?

Hairy Homer

To Donnybrook on Saturday to watch Leinster v Munster. (And good to see the muck savages getting a damned good thrashing, if I may say so :-))

Was really looking forward to seeing Christian Cullen, the All Blacks record try scorer, evangelising the cause of back play to the up-the-jumper merchants but boy was I disappointed? He hardly touched the ball in attack, and when he did he was nailed straight away. In defence he was bloody awful. Especially for Leinster's first try. I mean, there's selling a dummy but what sort of dummy do you have to be to buy one when the attacker has hardly to break stride as Brown did?

Cullen was muck. Pants. A salutary lesson to all managers considering poaching southern hemisphere players no longer wanted by their own teams: never pick one who wears a number larger than nine.
Forwards endure; backs have a sell-by date that they have usually reached before they are let go.

Some forwards who have come over here have enhanced their reputations and become legends in their adopted lands. eg John Langford and Jim Williams.

But the number of hallowed backs that have come to these islands and sank into oblivion is long. Who remembers what Tim Horan achieved in England? Or Inga Tuigamala? Or who will remember what Cullen is doing, or not doing here?

Go on Christian. Prove me wrong.

RuggieBear

Hairy Homer wrote:

To Donnybrook on Saturday to watch Leinster v Munster. (And good to see the muck savages getting a damned good thrashing, if I may say so :-)).............

................ Who remembers what Tim Horan achieved in England? Or Inga Tuigamala? Or who will remember what Cullen is doing, or not doing here?

Go on Christian. Prove me wrong.

Have to say i enjoyed that match too. Didn't think Cullen was that bad but he has some reputation and he is a shadow of his former self (which means he is still an excellent player).

It really irked me that in the 2nd half the ref started to ping Leinster constantly at the breakdown/setpiece....IMO some of those penalty decisions were wrong (Some were right tho ) but one really annoyed me....right at the end as Leinster had tha ball on the Munster 22 in the middle, with a maul that had just collasped and the Ref penalises us for not realising the ball...despite the fact that the only way a Munster hand could be on it was by being offside....think that was the one cullen missed touch with.....

just get the feeling that some of the foreign refs have a soft spot for Munster and allows them to make sure the red team is always in contention or play an extra 10mins of injury time... :eek:

As for Inga Tuigimala, well, i saw him play for Wigan and Newcastle and he was brilliant...winning games singlehandedly but in general i'd agree with you.

munster rucker

There's enough of this Cullen Critisism on the main munster site. He was by far the best back for munster last weekend, and he makes one mistake and that's all that people seem to focus on. The man is a pure and genuine talent, he may not be as fast as he once was, but he's still very fast, and can pick amazing lines that noone else can see, what he needs is better backs supporting him. At the moment, he is carrying the Munster backline, which is very average at best.
I've seen cullen live three times this season already, and on TV twice, how people can criticize him after one not so great performance is beyond me

RuggieBear

munster rucker wrote:

There's enough of this Cullen Critisism on the main munster site. He was by far the best back for munster last weekend, and he makes one mistake and that's all that people seem to focus on. The man is a pure and genuine talent, he may not be as fast as he once was, but he's still very fast, and can pick amazing lines that noone else can see, what he needs is better backs supporting him. At the moment, he is carrying the Munster backline, which is very average at best.
I've seen cullen live three times this season already, and on TV twice, how people can criticize him after one not so great performance is beyond me

I agree, he has been very good this season but he was quite poor last season and even in his last three games he has made a couple of errors. His problem is that we have all seen what he was capable of in the past and he is still been judged by those standards....

munster rucker

RuggieBear wrote:

I agree, he has been very good this season but he was quite poor last season and even in his last three games he has made a couple of errors. His problem is that we have all seen what he was capable of in the past and he is still been judged by those standards....

I can't blame Cullen for that either, i think it's down to the poor quality of our backline .. excluding Shaun Payne who seems to be on the same wavelength(put him back on the wing Gaffney!!). The problems are mainly at 11,12 & 13. We needed some proper centres to be signed this year, and it wasn't done. Dutchie is smartest player of the centres, but he lacks real pace. Hendo hasn't been any good since his Lions tour. Mike Mullins looks great against average teams, but gets shown up defencively against the better teams. As for the other wing position .. Horgan has shown and improvement on last years horrible season, but is still not good enough in my opinion. John Kelly, while always giving his best, and nearly always being in the right place at the right time, isn't quick enough. He's had a bad start to the season, but i think he was operated on in the off season, so he may be sluggish.
Hopefully this new signing - Paul Devlin from Widnes rugby league will be a good addition to our backline. He's 6ft tall and 23 years old, fast and good in the tackle, hopefully what we need. And i'm still hoping for good things from James "The flying crowbar" Storey, hopefully he'll come good and give us more options at centre.
As you can see, besides Cullen and Payne, our backline is NOT at the standard required to win the CL not to mind the Holy Grail that is the HEC.

uberwolf

I have to say after the game I was impressed with Cullen, his lines are brillant and players don't seem to be able to get near him. It was a mare of a day for backs in that wind anyway but ball in hand he was good. I was right under browns try. That dummy was brillant, don't diss cullen for excellent play by an attacking player.

Nukem

Think Cullen does the little things so right?

Think people dont spot the little things that he does so right. A pass a tackle-all round great player.Same as John Hayes look at him off the ball and its imense the amount of work tackling and covering he does.
People just know him as the "All time top All blacks try scorer"

Give him time and give him the fulll team and then comment

Hairy Homer

Nukem wrote:

Think Cullen does the little things so right?

Think people dont spot the little things that he does so right. A pass a tackle-all round great player.Same as John Hayes look at him off the ball and its imense the amount of work tackling and covering he does.
People just know him as the "All time top All blacks try scorer"

Give him time and give him the fulll team and then comment

Don't get me wrong. I would love to see Cullen really show his talents for Munster. (Just as long as it's not against Leinster ) even allowing for the natural depreciation that comes with age.

But he was very poor on Saturday. It wasn't just the dummy. Browne did well but Cullen didn't even get close. And there were a few other dropped passes and wrong options as well.

My personal prejudice would be never to allow on to the Irish team a player from Munster who wears a number greater than nine. (Kelly, Horgan, Kiernan (uncle and nephew), Dannaher...... wouldn't have let them near the team. Any of them.

Muck, so they were.

I would still prefer Humphreys to O'Gara, and be keeping a sharp eye on how Andy Dunne is doing in England.

So Munster's acquisition of a genuine star back is to be welcomed. But from what I've seen so far, it's not been good.

Will be happy to eat words at the appropriate time.

daveirl

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suppafly

daveirl wrote:

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that exactly what i think too daveirl. He really starting to click now and when he is with the full side it will be alot better.