Alex Johnston’s try-scoring record for South Sydney Rabbitohs – all 209 tries broken down

Never the biggest. Most of the time it’s not even the fastest. And he freely admits that he is not the best of a modern winger in many respects.

Still, Alex Johnston made rugby league history. Ken Irvine’s all-time Australian record of 212 tries came courtesy of two eagerly awaited tries against the Roosters on Friday night.

And despite all expectations, Johnston’s goalscoring success really comes down to how far he can go and how far he can push one of rugby league’s more astonishing numbers.

Especially when you analyze exactly how he got to this point – 213 attempts and counting.

Johnston has no qualms about playing outside the best left edge of the last five years. He knows Cody Walker and Latrell Mitchell put a lot of their tries on a plate, and he told them this: reporter as in an interview late last year.

“I love playing with ‘T-Mitt’ [Mitchell]“Cody Walker gave me most of the ones I tried, but Trell was my second-most,” Johnston said.

Adam Reynolds’ boot and Greg Inglis’ brute strength are more than useful options. The Burgess brothers Sam and George, Manly enforcer Nathan Brown and current Rabbitohs man John Sutton have also helped out over the years.

Johnston is certain to rank high among rugby league’s top scorers. Immortals in waiting, premiership winners, Origin and Kangaroo champions, they all lie behind him.

Between them, the top 11 scorers in history (Matt Sing and Hazem El Masri rank equal 10th on 159 tries) have crossed the line at least 1,960 times.

So how far can Johnston go? Champion Data puts his average try scoring haul at 17.2 tries per season, or almost nine tries for every 10 games played.

Injuries have reduced this rate in the last two seasons. However, Johnston has a new two-year deal with Souths that runs until 2026 and 2027.

And it’s hard to imagine Walker, Mitchell, Cameron Murray and the like playing less than they have over the last 18 months; so a 12-14 per year mark to match his final two seasons seems like a fair, if conservative, move.

As reported by this imprint, there is a clause in Johnston’s new Rabbitohs deal that he can negotiate at any time with the incoming PNG franchise for 2028, at which point Johnston will be 33 years old. If he’s still playing, the smart money will be on the NRL’s newest team.

Adding another 20-30 tries before retirement calls seems like a reasonable estimate, as does a new high water mark of 230-240 tries.

So who could finally take the record away from him? Daniel Tupou (183 tries, 34) and Josh Addo-Carr (159 tries, 30) are his closest contemporaries but time is against them.

Warriors flyer Alofiana Khan-Pereira is the only available player who can beat Johnston’s strike rate. But he competed for a game with the Titans and now he competes for a game with the Warriors.

Ronaldo Mulitalo’s record is a bit surprising; It is stated that both he and Xavier Coates can shoot if they continue to play and score for another decade.

As we mentioned Tupou, the one-time baby giraffe who truly dominated the airways and left wing for the Roosters, he and Johnston have been the game’s most consistent goalscorers over the last decade and a double century awaits the experienced flyer.

Looking at Johnston’s annual record, it can be summarized as follows: If he’s in the paddock, he scores tries.

The 2018 season, in which Souths reached the preliminary final under Anthony Seibold and Johnston played at full-back all year, was the only season in which Johnston was fit and did not finish with a load of tries.

The 2021 and 2022 seasons are extraordinary record-breaking seasons for Johnston (no-one has scored 30 tries in back-to-back seasons) thanks to the restart of the kit and the introduction of riotous attackers like Walker and Mitchell.

Finally, consider the Tigers, who have always been included in such statistics of the last decade for obvious reasons.

Johnston’s 20 tries against JV make them his favorite opponent, closely followed by Parramatta and the Roosters (18 each).

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