NRL 2023: Are the Rabbitohs ruining Alex Johnston’s chance at try-scoring record? | Paul Kent

He’s the best chance to break a record many thought unbeatable, but are the Rabbitohs holding Alex Johnston back from overtaking Ken Irvine as the all-time tryscorer, asks Paul Kent.

Alex Johnston sits fifth on the all-time tryscorer list, but has seemingly fallen behind Campbell Graham at the Rabbitohs in 2023. Picture: Getty Images.

Alex Johnston doesn’t look like the modern winger.

Modern wingers are built how second-rowers used to be built, with barrel chests and sneers.

Worse, they are measured like front-rowers.

The key quality for a winger nowadays is to be a good yardage man out of trouble. A guy who can do the tough carries, and all that.

All Alex Johnstone can do, it seems, is score tries.

Johnston plays his 200th game Saturday night but, more than that, he sits fifth on the all-time try scoring list behind Ken Irvine (212), Billy Slater (190), Steve Menzies (180) and Brett Morris (176), with 169.

He is chasing the one individual record most thought impossible to beat.

In many ways, Irvine’s record sits somewhere around St George’s 11 straight premierships, or Bradman’s 99.94 batting average or Winx’s four successive WS Cox Plates.

Or, in a timely fashion, Wayne Bennett’s 900 games coached in the NRL, which he will achieve a couple of hours before Johnston hits his 200 mark tonight at Suncorp Stadium.

You can see them from afar, but only if you squint.

Alex Johnston sits fifth on the all-time tryscorer list, but has seemingly fallen behind Campbell Graham at the Rabbitohs in 2023. Picture: Getty Images.

It was a thought only reinforced when Slater fell short by 22 tries when he retired in 2018. That’s it, most thought, Irvine’s record will stand forever.

Adding to their belief was that Slater played 323 games over 16 seasons, a clear advantage over Irvine’s 236 games, and as deadly as even he was, he would have needed another season, and possibly two, to surpass Irvine.

Johnston is in his 10th season.

If it takes persistence to break the record, though, then Johnston just might be the man.

He has had more than one chance to throw it all in.

In many ways Johnston nearly became victim to the modern bias for wingers employed to carry the ball out of yardage.

Not particularly big, the Rabbitohs’ brains trust got together and figured he had no future at the club. They wanted someone bigger, more robust, in keeping with the modern trend.

Fans were outraged, of course.

They recognised Johnston as not only one of the game’s most under-appreciated players, but South Sydney through and through.

Johnston didn’t want to leave the Rabbitohs but the choice wasn’t his.

So as Melbourne circled the fans petitioned the club, demanding the Rabbitohs re-sign him.

Finally it took Wayne Bennett to recognise what was sitting right in front of them.

Johnston was a pure finisher.

Are the Rabbitohs holding Alex Johnston back? Art by Boo Bailey.

Who cared if he was a little light in the carriage and didn’t find those early metres everybody else was so focused on. What he did was simply find a way to get the ball over the tryline, and more often than most.

And isn’t that what the game is about?

In many ways he was a throwback, to a time when wingers were judged on nothing more than their ability to score.

Like when Irvine played.

So Johnston re-signed, Melbourne eventually signing Xavier Coates instead.

While Johnston refuses to talk about Irvine’s record you can be sure he is determined to beat it. He holds the record far more closely than he lets on.

Asked this week about it Johnston shrugged it off, saying all he was interested in was helping South Sydney win games and, if he did that, the tries would take care of itself.

There were several reasons he was asked.

The first was that Johnston finds himself in the unusual position of being absent from this season’s top tryscorer’s list.

After nine games he has scored just three tries.

The second is related to the first, which goes that teammate Campbell Graham actually is on the tryscorer’s list, with 11 tries, which is also unusual because Graham plays on South Sydney’s right side.

For years the Rabbitohs were a left-side dominant team, but now Graham has benefited from a change in attack. Picture: Getty Images.

Call it an unhealthy advantage but, for years, South Sydney has been a left-side dominant team in terms of attack, the ball zipping from Cody Walker to Latrell Mitchell and then usually to Johnston.

So much, some rival teams began stacking an extra defender on that side of the field in attempts to stench the blood flow.

Their right side was anaemic, little more than afterthought by rivals.

So this year the Rabbitohs have moved to fix their bias, pushing more attack down their right side, which is benefiting Graham nicely, even if it has put the slows on Johnston.

It rounds out the Rabbitohs to be a far more balanced team even if, the suspicion goes, to beat the good sides they are going to let their stars on the left have a free rein.

Still, it raises the question whether Johnston will get to Irvine’s record at all.

What seemed the most likely shot yet at claiming the record suddenly has the wobbles.

His manager Steve Gillis said yesterday there was no time frame on when he hoped to break the record but, all being equal, he hoped to get it in about three years.

“He’ll fill grandstands when he gets close,” Gillis said.

“It’s going to be a big moment in the game.”

At 28, time is on his side. Johnston believes he has at least another five seasons left in him.

Providing he stays on the same trajectory he will eclipse Irvine’s record, of course, a record that has stood for 50 years now.

But the great unknown is what stands between now and the 43 more tries he needs.

Irvine’s record has stood for 50 years for a reason.

WHY NO ONE WILL CHASE DOWN BENNETT

When it comes to insurmountable records, Wayne Bennett’s 900th game, which he reaches tonight, is another that will likely prove impossible to catch.

But where does Bennett sit in terms of the greatest ever?

Many will have Bennett placed firmly at the top, citing that among his 900 games Bennett has seven premierships, which is also a record.

Yet Jack Gibson was named coach of the century in 2008, the game’s centenary year, even though Bennett had already tallied six of his seven premiership wins.

Gibson has solid claims. He won five premierships of his own as coach.

More, Gibson was the first coach to make coaching important, in the modern sense.

Ahead of his 900th first-grade game, the case for Bennett being the best ever coach is becoming more compelling. Picture: Getty Images.

Before Gibson, coaches coached teams selected for them by committees and the captain often had as big a say on all matters within the club, including training sessions.

Gibson was the first to understand the importance of tackle counts and other statistics to shape his thinking.

Around that the blueprint for modern game was developed by Warren Ryan, who was the first coach to split his centres, for instance, and applied the science to the sport.

When it comes to influence then you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who influenced the way the game is played today than Ryan.

But two premierships is probably not enough to get Ryan over the line.

While there have been many other great coaches, the likes of Bob Fulton, Craig Bellamy and Tim Sheens, among them, any argument about the best ever will likely settle on Bennett, Gibson and Ryan.

And with each game coached Bennett makes his case compelling.