There's two elements that Fulton offers that no other forward (except Ellis) offers - line running and ball playing. Now unfortunately, although he straightens the attack beautifully with his lines, he has limited impact because he's just not big enough. I was hoping he'd bulked up over the past 18 months, but after seeing him up close on Sunday he's still small for a forward - think Beau Ryan size. His ball-playing though offered a dimension our attack has been missing for some time - the days of our forwards passing before the line are long gone for the most part so it's nice to see that return. He is most definitely our best option on the right - as westie said, that's not to say there aren't better players out there, just none in our squad.
Leaving Ellis aside (who was hands down our best last week), Fulton was the best performed player on Sunday, followed by Flanagan. With two of Fulton, Gibbs & Payten on the field at any one time, our defence should be much improved again this year.
The problem with our back-row as I see it isn't Ellis on the left or Fulton on the right - it's Heighington in the middle. His impact running the ball is on a par with Fulton (read: ordinary), but his defence is nowhere near as good. I'm hoping he can step it up this year because he's a certainty to be selected every week, and we need far greater production from him if he's going to be playing 65+ minutes week in, week out.
