Alex Johnston is adored by all in rugby league, but even so, this was extreme. On Friday night, as he and his Souths teammates celebrated the second-half try that made him the NRL’s greatest try-scorer, one of the first into the melee was a fan wearing not the cardinal red and myrtle green, but the Roosters’ tricolours.
This Craig Salvatori flashback donned a 1990s cotton jersey pulled tight by desperate security, with No 8 on the back, and adorned with a faded Samsung along the belly. As more fans launched themselves over the fence, the guard in yellow flicked his hand dismissively at him, gesturing that he was not worth it and letting him go. The crack in the dam wall quickly became a flood.
The first surge took the lead from the imitation Salvo and headed towards Johnston and the celebrating Souths players. Teammates tried in vain to protect the man of the hour. Hundreds then thousands made their way onto the field because, really, when would this ever happen again? The mass around Johnston swelled; the entire Allianz Stadium surface was alive with merrymaking. It took more than two minutes for the winger to find a path off the field and into the dressing room.
Officials had threatened fines. Wayne Bennett had grumbled against the prospect of a pitch invasion. But the heaving mass, mostly, won out. One unfortunate fellow was pinned to the turf by three fluoro-clad security guards, as hundreds hopped and skipped around. Still they streamed down the aisles. Even Rabbitohs fan Anthony Albanese joined the throng and high-fived fans.
In the first set after half-time, the moment was as spontaneous as it was inevitable. David Fifita, the latest Bennett reclamation project, surged and spun away from three defenders. What should have been the most structured, straightforward six tackles of the half all of a sudden exploded into possibility.
There was Johnston, accelerating to a gallop down the near touchline. Fans had only just found their seats after the break, now their hindquarters were perched on the edge, coiled in preparation.
The Rabbitohs’ backup hooker Peter Mamouzelos played juniors at the Maroubra Lions’ Snape Park, a dozen or so stops on the old 394 bus from Johnston’s first taste of football at La Perouse United. From Fifita’s offload, Mamouzelos’s neat catch and pass found Latrell Mitchell.
The former Rooster is now the face of the Rabbitohs. His gravity in rugby league’s universe is like no other. But this circus was one of very few that did not become about him. All eyes, instead, were on the man whose loping stride was approaching top speed just to the left.
Mitchell might be the blinding sun to a sparkling Johnston, circling in orbit. The winger’s career mimics the Earth’s place in the Goldilocks zone. Astrophysicists have long wondered about the uncanny set of circumstances that led to life on Earth, of just the right atmosphere, water, and heat to make miracles.
Johnson reaching this 213 try-mark is almost as improbable. Ken Irvine’s record stood for 53 years. There have been iterations of rule tweaks to encourage try scoring in those intervening years, yet still the closest anyone had come to the mark was Billy Slater with 190.
Slater as a player was a titan of the game, just as he appears to be as a coach. Few would argue against the notion Johnston is a step below. Make no mistake, the Souths premiership winger and one-time Kangaroo has had a remarkably successful career, that could still have years to go. But look at the AFL, where Tony Lockett’s reputation befits his place at the top of the goal-kicking charts. In international football, nobody has found the net more than Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi. In the NBA, LeBron James has scored thousands more points than anybody else. Tom Brady is the NFL’s all-time leader in touchdown passes.
Rugby league is a different sport, and one that values more than just scoring. But its headline historical tally is now held by a guy who doesn’t sniff an Origin jersey. Slight for a modern winger, Johnston has always relied on elite speed and finishing, and he has benefited from playing at Souths during an era of success and commitment to attacking rugby league. He was the top-scorer as a rookie in the 2014 premiership, and has been on the end of a star-studded Souths backline for his entire career. His first six seasons delivered a solid return of 83 tries, before an explosion that hauled Irvine’s mark within reach.
Johnston’s physical peak coincided with Cody Walker’s emergence as perhaps the game’s best playmaker and Mitchell’s phase as a ball-handling fullback. The recipe was an attacking elixir that, together with rule changes that sped up the game and triggered a spike in scoring, helped the Bunnies’ man on the wing bag 104 tries in just four seasons.
To suggest Johnston does not deserve the accolade of the greatest ever, however, is to do him a disservice. He has spoken with pride of his Sabai Islands and PNG roots, and is universally loved, as a humble family man and good-humoured teammate. Those qualities were evident on Monday in his deadpan response to the unveiling of a statue of him at Heffron Park.
“The majority of my footy career has been overwhelmingly positive, but along the way a few fans have shit on me,” Johnston said. “There have been a few coaches who have shit on me, the media has shit on me – now the pigeons can shit on me.”
He has overcome tears to both hamstrings, quad strains, cartilage damage in his knees, and an achilles injury in 2024 that threatened his career.
The winger was close to leaving the club until a heartfelt letter to Rabbitohs administration and the support of Bennett secured him a final chapter at the club. In a position that is now a de facto front-rower in a set’s early carries, the very presence in first grade of Johnston – a throwback finisher not getting younger at 31 – is an achievement.
So to see him streak down the touchline, clasping Mitchell’s pass and kicking his knees high in his customary style, not a defender in front of him, the rugby league world found it impossible not to cheer. Fullback Jye Gray was first there to celebrate, then Walker. Then the fan in the Salvatori jumper, the first of thousands to make this one of rugby league’s unforgettable nights.
