- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Alex Johnston is the closest winger I’ve seen to the greatest of them all – Ken Irvine.
Johnston will make his Test debut on Friday night at Suncorp against the Kiwis, aged 20. He’s the youngest in the squad by four years – Josh Dugan and Aaron Woods are 24.
Johnston has scored 27 tries in his 21 games for the Rabbitohs, more than enough to demand the attention of the national selectors.
I’ve been watching rugby league for over 60 years, and for mine Ken Irvine is the greatest winger of all-time.
How he wasn’t inducted in the first intake of Immortals in 1981 with Clive Churchill, Reg Gasnier, Johnny Raper, and Bobby Fulton defies description – Irvine was at least the equal of all four. Just look at his stats:
North Sydney 1958-1970: 176 games, 171 tries.
Manly 1971-1973: 60 – 41.
NSW – 1959-1967: 24 – 30.
Australia 1959-1967: 31 – 33.
Total: 291 games, 275 tries.
Ken Irvive played his last game 42 years ago, yet he is still the NRL’s leading try-scorer with 212. Manly’s Steve Menzies (1993-2008) is second, with 180.
Billy Slater (2000-current) with 170 is the only possible threat to Irvine, but 42 is a helluva lot of tries yet to be scored.
I sure don’t want to put the mocka on Johnston, but his try-scoring feats are Irvine-like.
And in these days of defence concentration, Johnston sure knows where the white line is, despite the attention.
But he has the Irvine assets – sheer speed, the ability to beat a man on the outside and inside, and no fear of who is in front of him.
Johnston’s 27 tries in 21 games is also Irvine-like.
In Irvine’s first season with the North Sydney Bears he crossed for 19 tries, in his second season for 16. So Johnston is well on track to match Irvine’s 33 in his first two seasons.
But it must be pointed out Johnston is playing in a premiership-winning side, affording him plenty of chances, whereas Irvine hardly saw the ball in a Bears side that kept finding a new way to be beaten almost every week. Irvine had to go searching for scraps, but still managed to score tries against the odds.
Having said that, Alex Johnston is a very exciting winger, a crowd-pleaser off the top shelf. With his Souths skipper Greg Inglis inside him at Suncorp on Friday night, and Billy Slater out the back, expect Alex Johnston to shine.
And the kid has a sense of humour.
For his Souths player profile, he was asked if a movie was made about him, what would the title be, and who would play him?
Johnston’s answer – “The Black Magician”, and Will Smith.
Alex Johnston will prove to be exactly that at all levels – “The Black Magician”.