Christian Cullen is a New Zealand
rugby union player who represented the
New Zealand national rugby union team either as a
fullback Fullback or Full back may refer to:
Sports
* A position in various kinds of football, including:
** Full-back (association football), in association football (soccer), a defender playing in a wide position
** Fullback (gridiron football), in Americ ...
or a
wing at international level from 1996 to 2002. He represented New Zealand in 58 test matches and scored 46
tries for his country.
Cullen's try total places him ninth on the
all-time list and he is the second highest try scorer for New Zealand behind
Doug Howlett (49). He holds the record for the highest number of international tries scored in the fullback playing position in history.
Cullen made his international debut for New Zealand in a 51–10 victory over
Samoa at
McLean Park in
Napier Napier may refer to:
People
* Napier (surname), including a list of people with that name
* Napier baronets, five baronetcies and lists of the title holders
Given name
* Napier Shaw (1854–1945), British meteorologist
* Napier Waller (1893–19 ...
on 7 June 1996,
scoring his first three international tries in the same match.
He went on to score a further four tries in a 62–31 win against
Scotland the following week.
Cullen went on to score more tries in the
Tri Nations Series in
1996
File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...
,
1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...
,
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...
,
1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...
and
2000
File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...
and
New Zealand's tour of Britain and Ireland in 1997.
His final three tries came in a test match on 29 June 2002 with
Fiji
Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...
at
Westpac Stadium in
Wellington, where he overtook
Jeff Wilson's total of 44 to become the player with the highest number of tries scored for New Zealand.
Cullen remained New Zealand's leading try-scorer until Howlett overtook Cullen's total in September 2007.
Of Cullen's 46 international tries, 27 were scored in test matches, 16 in the Tri Nations Series and 3 in New Zealand's 1997 tour of Britain and Ireland. He scored more against
South Africa more than any other team, with ten tries, followed by
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
whom he scored eight tries against. Cullen scored multiple tries in a single international match on 13 occasions, including four
hat-tricks. The first of these was a three-try effort against Samoa on his 1996 international debut. The second hat-trick was against Scotland in his second international game held the following week. The third was against
Wales in New Zealand's 1997 Britain and Ireland tour and the last was over Fiji in a 2002 test match. Cullen scored tries against 11 countries, including eight of the eleven
"Tier 1" countries and three "Tier 2" nations.
Key
* Won denotes that the match was won by New Zealand.
* Lost denotes that the match was lost by New Zealand.
* Draw denotes that the match was drawn.
International tries
''Scores and results list New Zealand's tally first.''
Hat-tricks
Statistics
:Source:
[
]
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cullen
New Zealand national rugby union team lists
International tries by Cullen
International tries by Cullen