Counties best ever
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Flanker from the late 70's Hank Habraken was a favorite of mine from that strong CM side.
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I deliberately didn't list some of the names recognised by the panel as "missing out" to see how many might get mentioned here but there were shout outs to
Kieran Read, Sonny Bill Williams, Portia Woodman or Stephen Donald (didn't play for CM enough)
Ean McRobbie, Henk Harbraken, Peter Clotworthy, Warren McLean, Paul Tuoro from the 70s.
Tana Umaga, Fritz Lee and Bundee Aki, TNW, Feeney.
Kevin Skinner, Bruce McLeod, Robert Kururangi, Nicky Allen and Mark Cooksley.I would also add in Lee Lidgard and Lindsay Raki and Boof Henson.
and @Higgins don't forget Mac McCallion in the coaching ranks
Edit: and Blues fans can whinge all they like but Tana Umaga coached the side to the Shield we had not been able to win in decades of trying.
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Apologies.
As predicted the top three were Dawson, Lomu and Robertson
3 Lomu
2 Dawson
1 Robertson#1: Bruce Robertson⭐️⭐️
Considered by our panel of experts as the greatest player in Counties Manukau history, Bruce Robertson ranked number one or number two by each of our six judges.
The brilliant centre of the 1970s and early 90s was ahead of his time. Silky skills, beautiful hands, pace and swerve and was someone that never seemed to play a bad game.
Robertson made his Counties debut in 1971 at age 19 and would go on to play 135 games until his retirement in 1982.
He played 34 test matches for the All Blacks from 1972-81 and was widely considered the greatest centre of all-time. -
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@bovidae said in Counties best ever:
@crucial Who was on the panel? As with the Waikato team of the Century, the fans tend to vote for recent stars, so they would have voted Lomu at no.1 I'm sure.
I think that's why they did it this way. Didn't name the panel but took the top names nominated by public then ranked.
That Waikato one was a sham because, as you say, the voting leans heavily to recent players. -
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Went to a few of those Counties games as a kid in the mid-late 1990s because my Dad grew up there and played age-group for Counties. That team they had with Lomu, Vidiri, the Marsh brothers, Errol Brain, Jim Coe etc was incredible.
Aside from the Steamers winning the shield, the game in Waikato where they came back from 20 something points down in the semi was one of the best games I've seen live. The atmosphere in the terraces was electric.
