No matter how prodigious a new try-scorer was, Irvine’s 212 was still over the horizon. Steve Menzies, after 15 years and 349 games of running into gaps created by Cliff Lyons, Des Hasler and Jamie Lyon, retired with 180. Billy Slater, on the end of scoring moves with Melbourne Storm teams that won 209 of his 296 games, finished his career with 190. Irvine’s 212 remained as mythical, and unattainable, as Don Bradman’s 99.94 Test batting average, more an idea of human potential than a real target. Slater had the good fortune of playing in a dominant team. Maybe the best comparison to Irvine is Tony Lockett’s 1360 goals in the AFL. Lockett, like Irvine and Johnston, was a finisher in teams that were not blessed with consistent success. Plugger played 11 seasons for the hapless St Kilda and five for the Swans, who he helped to one grand final. Irvine made a twilight switch to Manly, where he won two premierships, but he’d scored 171 of his tries – at a faster rate of one per game, in his 13 seasons at North Sydney. Only twice in that time did the Bears reach the semi-finals, and only in three of those seasons did they win more games than they lost. Yet somehow they still found a way to get Irvine into space.