Bob Fulton dead: Tributes to rugby league ‘legend’ after former Australia captain dies aged 74

Tributes have been paid to a ‘legend of the game’

Bob Fulton, right, after the 1996 ARL grand final (Getty Images)

Tributes have poured in for English-born former Australia captain and coach Bob Fulton, who died on Sunday aged 74 after a battle with cancer.

Fulton, who was born in Warrington and emigrated to Australia at the age of four, was among the first group of players to be granted “immortal” status by Rugby League Week in 1981 after representing the Kangaroos in 35 Tests as a player and 40 times as a coach.

Fulton, who made 16 appearances for Warrington in 1969-70, played 213 games for Manly Warringah Sea Eagles and a further 50 for Eastern Suburbs Roosters. He won three World Cups and was the Kangaroos’ leading tryscorer on the 1978 and 1983 tours to the UK.

Fulton went on to coach both the Sea Eagles and the Roosters and guided Australia to victory in the 1992 and 1995 World Cup finals as well as the 1990 and 1994 Kangaroo tours.

Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys said: “The word legend is used a lot in tributes but Bob was a genuine legend of rugby league. Bob will forever be part of rugby league’s DNA and our game is richer for having had Bob part of it.”

Manly’s players wore black armbands and observed a minute’s silence ahead of Sunday’s match against Parramatta in Sydney, which the Sea Eagles won 28-6.

Manly coach Des Hasler, who played under Fulton at both club and Test level, said: “Bozo has been an absolute legend of the game. To many of us he was a friend, a mentor, his legend that he brought to the game while he was playing and then as a coach and an administrator will never be forgotten.”

Former England and Australia coach Wayne Bennett, who played with Fulton for the Kangaroos in the 1970s, said: “I coached against him a lot and we were Australian selectors together when I was a coach. I’ve seen a lot of players and he was up there with the greatest players I have ever seen in our game.”

PA