Counties Manukau has been blessed with some of the greatest players our country has ever produced but who would be the kings of the mountain? Which players would have their faces carved into the Mt Rushmore of Counties Manukau Rugby?

Counties Sports Hub and Counties Manukau Rugby have teamed up to find out.

We want you to help us. It is entirely subjective of course but an exercise that will highlight the best of the best.

Nominate your choices by commenting in the comments section of our Facebook post or email leah.farrell@steelers.co.nz and we will put together a list of the top 10 choices based on fan feedback.

From there, we will hand that list of 10 names off to our panel of expert judges, who will rank those 10 players in order from 1-10. We will tally up the judge’s scores to determine the top four players in the history of Counties Manukau Rugby, who will comprise our Mt Rushmore.

Who would you rank as our greatest ever? Is Jonah Lomu a certainty? What about Bruce Robertson? How would the likes of Pat Walsh and Bob Lendrum compare to modern stars? Would any of the all-All Black front row of Dalton, Spiers and Ketels feature? How about Jim Coe, Errol Brain and Joeli Vidiri from the 1990s team that was so successful? Did Kieran Read, Stephen Donald, Sitiveni Sivivatu, Hazel Tubic, Portia Woodman or Tana Umaga do enough in Counties Manukau colours to make the cut?

Help us recognise our past by defining those that defined it.

The cut-off for nominations will close on Friday at 5pm. The judges will give us their rankings and we will start the reveal of who made the cut next week.

The expert judging panel includes…

  • CMRFU patron and longest serving member Don Shuker
  • Former Steelers player, coach and current board member Gary Millington
  • World Cup winning All Blacks legend and current All Blacks selector Grant Fox
  • Former CMRFU Media and Marketing manager and current Players Association Communications manager Kylie Sousa
  • Long-serving CMRFU official photographer Richard Spranger
  • Former Steelers coach and renowned administrator Andrew Talaimanu