[2][3] Fulton played, coached, selected for and has commentated on the game with great success at the highest levels and has been named amongst Australia's greatest rugby league players of the 20th century.
At 18 years of age, Fulton made his senior football debut in the Illawarra Rugby League with Western Suburbs in 1965 and went on to represent Country Seconds.
Fulton was signed to Sydney's Manly-Warringah by club secretary Ken Arthurson after being spotted by John Hobbs (Manly talent scout) and started his NSWRFL first grade career in 1966 aged 19.
He earned State representative honours in 1967 and the following year became the youngest ever captain in Grand Final history when he led Manly in the 1968 decider against Souths.
At the end of the 1976 season Fulton caused a sensation in Sydney rugby league circles when he left Manly and signed a 3-year deal with the Eastern Suburbs club.
Fulton played 16 games for Warrington, scoring 16 tries and kicking 1 field goal before returning to Australia and Manly for the 100% won that year1970 season.
Whilst he was disappointed at missing out on the 1967 Kangaroo Squad as 2nd string five-eighth to Tony Branson from the Nowra Warriors, he did play for the next eleven seasons as a consistent national representative.
The same knee injury that would eventually force his retirement as a player in 1979 would keep him from Australia's winning 1977 Rugby League World Cup squad.
Following the grand final victory, he travelled with Manly to England for the 1987 World Club Challenge against their champions, Wigan, though Manly-Warringah were beaten in a tryless game 8–2.
He guided the team in 39 Tests between 1989 and 1998 to 32 victories, one draw and six losses,[10] including the successful 1990 and 1994 Kangaroo tours, as well as winning both the 1992 and 1995 World Cup finals.
Fulton won his second and last premiership as a coach in 1996 when in their 50th season the Manly-Warringah club defeated St George 20–8 in a win at the Sydney Football Stadium.
Fulton was a longstanding and loyal friend of Kerry Packer who wholeheartedly backed the ARL and his own commercial interests and rights to broadcast the traditional game.
In 1981, he was selected by the publication Rugby League Week as one of the initial four post-war "Immortals" of the Australian game alongside Churchill, Raper and Gasnier.
[12] In 1994 Fulton was inducted as a Member of the Order of Australia "for service to rugby league football" and in 2000 he received the Australian Sports Medal.
[15][16] Respected rugby league commentator Roy Masters, believes he was left off the starting team due to his versatility, making it difficult to put him in just in one position.
[18] He was laid to rest at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney on 4 June 2021, with hundreds of Australian sporting and media personalities in attendance.