Sporting Stars visiting Pembrokeshire – No 29

 

Christian Cullen - All Black try-scorer extraordinaire!!

 
When Wales played New Zealand in the Autumn internationals 2026 a welcome visitor to our country was Christian Cullen, whose scoring feats for The All Blacks from his regular berth as full back, or occasionally on the wing, were legendary.
 
He was here to watch Wales lose to New Zealand (of course!) but also worked as a television pundit, alongside earning some spare cash as a guest speaker on the days before and after in several sports clubs where guests were eager to hear what he had to say.
 

Christian welcomed at Hook

 
They included the Marriott Hotel in Cardiff, Glynneath FC and Hook Sports Association here in Pembrokeshire, where he received a very warm welcome from a big audience and I was lucky to join my old pal Richard Scriven as joint hosts and at two question and answer sessions.
 
We asked him about his scoring accomplishments, where he grabbed 46 tries for his country in 58 internationals, and he was modest about his electric pace, flair, tenacity, running angles and ability to turn opposing defenders with consummate ease!
 
He joined Zinzan Brook as New Zealanders who have spoken at the club and pretty soon now there will be a third ex-All Black in superb outside half in Andrew Mehrtens as Craig Jones, Scott Gregory and Mr Scriven are the main organisers of such a big event.
 

Caught the eye from the outset

 
Cullen had already served notice of his talents in 1993/94, when he played for New Zealand Schools and within a year was playing top senior stuff with Manawatu, where he scored 14 tries in only 12 games.
 
In 1996 he showed his flair whilst playing sevens’ rugby for the All Blacks in Fiji and Hong Kong - and scored 18 tries in only seven matches, including seven tries in one of them!
 
It was a similar story when he made his senior debut against Tonga as he raced through for a try hat-trick, which was dismissed a little because they weren’t perhaps regarded as a major team - but in his second appearance against Scotland he managed to grab four tries!
 

More sevens success

 
Despite The All Blacks going through what was for them a time of mixed fortunes he still claimed more than his share of tries and when he returned to the sevens’’ format for the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur he helped them to the gold medal as he scored nine tries and 23 conversions.
 
He played regional rugby for The Hurricanes, Central Vikings and Wellington, all with plenty of points gathering, before he finished a career, which had seen him develop injury problems, at Munster, playing 44 times for the Irish club team, where a knee injury caused him to retire.
 
Christian spoke warmly about some of the top New Zealand players, none more so than Jonah Lou, whom he told Richard and I was a catalyst for a number of his tries because opposing defences were so busy watching for the threat the powerhouse winger posed that he was given that vital extra space he needed.
 

And finally . . .

 
He was less than complimentary about John Mitchell, the All Blacks’ coach who had the temerity to drop him from the team and that is one of the reasons why his views were fascinating because what he had to say was the perfect mixture of fact, great humour and his willingness to be totally honest with his answers to our questions and some of those that came from the audience.
 
There is no doubt that his incredible scoring feats also played a major part of a thoroughly entertaining evening, and my interviewing parter Richard and I certainly agreed on one thing - it was fascinating to listen to the rugby mind-set of a legendary figure from ‘The Land of the Long White Cloud’!