Aussie teen Myers smashes under-20 national record
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The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
‘We can do it': Heidelberg's semi-pros back at work and eyeing another A-League upset
Australian soccer's giant killers Heidelberg United believe they can go all the way in the Australia Cup, but they face tough hurdles before their semi-final in September. There were raucous celebrations from the Warriors at Olympic Village after they overpowered A-League team Wellington Phoenix 4-0 in the quarter-final of the Australia Cup – Football Australia's version of England's FA Cup. The NPL Victoria team's quarter-final win came a week after their 3-0 victory over another A-League outfit, the Western Sydney Wanderers. It also set two new competition records, going down as the biggest win by a state league side against an A-League rival and becoming the first time state league team to record four 'cup-set' wins over A-League clubs. Goals from Max Bisetto and Asahi Yokokawa early in the second half followed a Wellington own-goal in the first half. Chok Dau delivered the crowd-pleasing fourth goal in the 85th minute. The Warriors are now waiting to see which A-League team they will come up against in the Australia Cup semi-final in September. It will be either Sydney FC or newcomers Auckland FC, who meet in their own quarter-final in Sydney on Saturday night. The Bergers players went back to work on Wednesday, among them 22-year-old left-back Fletcher Fulton, who works as a civil engineer for PAD Civil and was still on a high. 'It was unreal, there was definitely more expectation coming into this game and some added pressure, but it could not have gone more perfectly,' Fulton said. Sydney are a perennial contender in the A-League and Auckland won the premier's plate for finishing top of the ladder last season, but Bergers coach John Anastasiadis said his club was determined to become the first state league side to win the Cup since it started in 2014.
Sydney Morning Herald
4 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Alex Johnston has scored 209 NRL tries. We mapped every single one of them
Never the biggest. Often not even the fastest. And by many measures of a modern winger, which he freely acknowledges, not the best. Nonetheless, Alex Johnston sits on the precipice of rugby league history. Three four-pointers shy of equalling Ken Irvine's all-time Australian record of 212 tries, it is not a matter of if Johnston breaks new ground. Or even when, with two games against the Dragons and Roosters to come this season. The Rabbitohs flyer turns 31 in January and is on South Sydney's books for another two years. His try-scoring feats are really a matter of just how far will he go – and how much further can he extend one of rugby league's more astounding numbers? Particularly when you break down exactly how he's got to this very point – 209 tries and counting. Johnston makes no bones about playing outside the best left edge of the past five years. He knows Cody Walker and Latrell Mitchell have put plenty of his tries on a platter, and told the Herald exactly that this week. 'I love playing with 'T-Mitt' [Mitchell],' Johnston said. 'Cody Walker has given me most of my tries, but Trell would be the second most.' The boot of Adam Reynolds and the brute force of Greg Inglis are more than handy options to call upon as well. Burgess brothers Sam and George, Manly enforcer Nathan Brown and now-Rabbitohs staffer John Sutton have all leant a hand over the years as well. Johnston's place atop rugby league's greatest try-scorers is assured. Immortals in waiting, premiership-winners, Origin and Kangaroos champions all lie in his wake. Between them, the top 11 (Matt Sing and Hazem El Masri rank equal 10th on 159 tries) try-scorers in history have crossed the line no less than 1960 times. And as to how far can Johnston go? Champion Data has pegged his average try-scoring haul at 17.2 tries per season, or almost nine tries from every 10 games he has played. Injuries have curtailed that rate in the past two seasons. But Johnston has a new two-year deal with Souths that will see him through 2026 and 2027. And it's hard to imagine the likes of Walker, Mitchell, Cameron Murray and the like playing any less than they have in the past 18 months – so a yearly haul of 12-14 tries to match his past two seasons seems a fair, if conservative, stab. As reported by this masthead, Johnston has a clause in his new Rabbitohs deal to negotiate at any time with the incoming PNG franchise for 2028, by which point Johnston will be 33. If he's still playing, the smart money is it will be for the NRL's newest side. Adding another 20-30 tries by the time retirement calls feels like a reasonable estimate, so too a new high-water mark of 230-240 tries. And as for who could eventually take the record from him? Daniel Tupou (182 tries and 34 years old) and Josh Addo-Carr (153 tries, 30) are his closest contemporaries, but time is against them. Titans flyer Alofiana Khan-Pereira is the only current player who can trump Johnston's strike-rate. But he's struggled for a game this year at the wooden spooners too. Ronaldo Mulitalo's record surprises a little, with both he and Xavier Coates in with a shot if they keep playing and scoring for another decade. As we mention Tupou, the once baby giraffe who came to truly dominate the airways and left wing for the Roosters, he and Johnston have been the game's most consistent try-scorers of the past decade. Tupou's hat-trick against Canterbury took him past Steve 'Beaver' Menzies into fourth on the all-time list just last week, and he will play on into his 15th season at Moore Park. The double century beckons. Looking at Johnston's year-on-year record, it effectively boils down to this: if he's on the paddock, he's scoring tries. The 2018 campaign – when Souths played a preliminary final under Anthony Seibold and Johnston played the entire year at fullback – is the only season when Johnston was fit and didn't finish with a bagful of tries. The 2021 and 2022 seasons are particular, record-breaking outliers (no-one else scored 30 tries in back-to-back seasons) for Johnston thanks to the introduction of set restarts and attacking players like Walker and Mitchell running riot. Lastly, spare a thought for the Tigers – who always seem to feature in these types of statistics from the past decade, for obvious reasons. Johnston's 20 tries against the joint-venture make them his favourite rival, closely followed by Parramatta and the Roosters (18 apiece). The Rabbitohs won't play finals this year, and are doing well to dodge the wooden spoon. But Johnston securing his share of rugby league history against the Tricolours would go down a treat on the cardinal and myrtle side of Anzac Parade.
The Age
4 hours ago
- The Age
Alex Johnston has scored 209 NRL tries. We mapped every single one of them
Never the biggest. Often not even the fastest. And by many measures of a modern winger, which he freely acknowledges, not the best. Nonetheless, Alex Johnston sits on the precipice of rugby league history. Three four-pointers shy of equalling Ken Irvine's all-time Australian record of 212 tries, it is not a matter of if Johnston breaks new ground. Or even when, with two games against the Dragons and Roosters to come this season. The Rabbitohs flyer turns 31 in January and is on South Sydney's books for another two years. His try-scoring feats are really a matter of just how far will he go – and how much further can he extend one of rugby league's more astounding numbers? Particularly when you break down exactly how he's got to this very point – 209 tries and counting. Johnston makes no bones about playing outside the best left edge of the past five years. He knows Cody Walker and Latrell Mitchell have put plenty of his tries on a platter, and told the Herald exactly that this week. 'I love playing with 'T-Mitt' [Mitchell],' Johnston said. 'Cody Walker has given me most of my tries, but Trell would be the second most.' The boot of Adam Reynolds and the brute force of Greg Inglis are more than handy options to call upon as well. Burgess brothers Sam and George, Manly enforcer Nathan Brown and now-Rabbitohs staffer John Sutton have all leant a hand over the years as well. Johnston's place atop rugby league's greatest try-scorers is assured. Immortals in waiting, premiership-winners, Origin and Kangaroos champions all lie in his wake. Between them, the top 11 (Matt Sing and Hazem El Masri rank equal 10th on 159 tries) try-scorers in history have crossed the line no less than 1960 times. And as to how far can Johnston go? Champion Data has pegged his average try-scoring haul at 17.2 tries per season, or almost nine tries from every 10 games he has played. Injuries have curtailed that rate in the past two seasons. But Johnston has a new two-year deal with Souths that will see him through 2026 and 2027. And it's hard to imagine the likes of Walker, Mitchell, Cameron Murray and the like playing any less than they have in the past 18 months – so a yearly haul of 12-14 tries to match his past two seasons seems a fair, if conservative, stab. As reported by this masthead, Johnston has a clause in his new Rabbitohs deal to negotiate at any time with the incoming PNG franchise for 2028, by which point Johnston will be 33. If he's still playing, the smart money is it will be for the NRL's newest side. Adding another 20-30 tries by the time retirement calls feels like a reasonable estimate, so too a new high-water mark of 230-240 tries. And as for who could eventually take the record from him? Daniel Tupou (182 tries and 34 years old) and Josh Addo-Carr (153 tries, 30) are his closest contemporaries, but time is against them. Titans flyer Alofiana Khan-Pereira is the only current player who can trump Johnston's strike-rate. But he's struggled for a game this year at the wooden spooners too. Ronaldo Mulitalo's record surprises a little, with both he and Xavier Coates in with a shot if they keep playing and scoring for another decade. As we mention Tupou, the once baby giraffe who came to truly dominate the airways and left wing for the Roosters, he and Johnston have been the game's most consistent try-scorers of the past decade. Tupou's hat-trick against Canterbury took him past Steve 'Beaver' Menzies into fourth on the all-time list just last week, and he will play on into his 15th season at Moore Park. The double century beckons. Looking at Johnston's year-on-year record, it effectively boils down to this: if he's on the paddock, he's scoring tries. The 2018 campaign – when Souths played a preliminary final under Anthony Seibold and Johnston played the entire year at fullback – is the only season when Johnston was fit and didn't finish with a bagful of tries. The 2021 and 2022 seasons are particular, record-breaking outliers (no-one else scored 30 tries in back-to-back seasons) for Johnston thanks to the introduction of set restarts and attacking players like Walker and Mitchell running riot. Lastly, spare a thought for the Tigers – who always seem to feature in these types of statistics from the past decade, for obvious reasons. Johnston's 20 tries against the joint-venture make them his favourite rival, closely followed by Parramatta and the Roosters (18 apiece). The Rabbitohs won't play finals this year, and are doing well to dodge the wooden spoon. But Johnston securing his share of rugby league history against the Tricolours would go down a treat on the cardinal and myrtle side of Anzac Parade.
