The tries have dried up for Penrith winger Tom Jenkins in the past fortnight, but ‘Milky’ is still setting a historic pace that could see him join the top echelon of single-season try-poachers in premiership history.
Jenkins crossed an outrageous 16 times in the first seven rounds of the 2026 season – collecting six doubles and a four-try haul – to set his sights on tryscoring greatness.
At this pace, the somewhat unlikely Panthers star is well on track to become only the fourth player to reach the 30-try mark in a season…while Dave Brown’s seemingly untouchable first-grade record is not out of the question.
Dave Brown (Eastern Suburbs) – 38 tries (1935)
Brown’s nickname – ‘The Bradman of League’ – doesn’t sound so hyperbolic when his 1935 accomplishments are dissected. The champion Easts centre scored an unbelievable 38 tries in just 15 games to set a premiership record that still stands more than 90 years later.
Brown scored six tries in a match twice, five tries in a match once and notching three four-try hauls as the Tricolours stormed to the first of three straight premierships. He failed to score just twice in 1935 – a season that also garnered a then-record 244 points.
Leaving for Leeds at the end of 1936 with 91 tries in 78 games for Easts, Brown returned to Sydney in 1939 and finished his career with the club.
Like Jenkins, Brown had racked up 16 tries after nine appearances in 1935.
TRIES AFTER NINE GAMES: 16
Ray Preston (Newtown) – 34 tries (1954)
The only player to seriously challenge Brown’s record, Preston crossed for 34 tries in 21 games for the Bluebags in 1954.
Preston posted three hat-tricks in the first nine rounds and had another three trebles under his belt by the end of the regular season. But he fell short of Brown’s mark when he scored only one try in three finals matches – including Newtown’s grand final loss to Souths.
Preston retired in 1959 with 115 tries in 130 games for Newtown and Parramatta.
TRIES AFTER NINE GAMES: 16
Alex Johnston (South Sydney) – 30 tries (2021)
Rabbitohs winger Johnston’s charge to overtake Ken Irvine as the premiership’s greatest tryscorer began in earnest in 2021, when he piled up the highest individual season tally in 67 years and became only the third player to notch 30 tries in a year.
The historic haul was achieved in just 22 games – in one six-game stretch he grabbed three hat-tricks and three doubles.
TRIES AFTER NINE GAMES: 8
Alex Johnston (South Sydney) – 30 tries (2022)
‘AJ’ became the first player in the competition’s history to score 30 tries in a season twice, reaching the mark in 25 games despite another comparatively modest start to the year.
Johnston scored in 12 of 13 games at one stage, including three hat-tricks and four doubles.
He passed Irvine’s hallowed mark of 212 in 2026 and has 221 tries in 251 games for Souths.
TRIES AFTER NINE GAMES: 6
Les Brennan (South Sydney) – 29 tries (1954)
There must have been something in the Sydney water in 1954, because Souths winger Brennan racked up the third-highest individual tally in history in the same year Preston surged into second spot on the all-time honours board.
Remarkably, Brennan’s 29 tries in just 19 games came in his initial season in first grade. He grabbed two four-try hauls and three hat-tricks, while the 23-15 grand final win over Preston’s Newtown side was one of just four games he didn’t manage to score.
Suffering a serious back injury in that game, Brennan would only make another five top-grade appearances for the Rabbitohs.
TRIES AFTER NINE GAMES: 14
Bobby Lulham (Balmain) – 28 tries (1947)
Newcastle winger Lulham rocketed onto the NSWRL premiership scene with Balmain as a 20-year-old in 1947, scoring 28 tries in only 18 games – the equal-second-highest tally ever at the time.
The rookie’s campaign included a run of 12 games scoring at least one try, while he scored a club record five tries in one game against Parramatta for the eventual premiers.
Lulham was a 1948-49 Kangaroo tourist, but a celebrated and salacious domestic court case – in which he was inadvertently poisoned by his mother-in-law with whom he was having an affair – derailed his career. He left behind a remarkable record of 85 tries in 86 games for the Tigers.
TRIES AFTER NINE GAMES: 13
Johnny Graves (South Sydney) – 28 tries (1951)
Another Newcastle product, the eccentric ‘Whacka’ Graves had been an Australian Test regular for several seasons before posting 28 tries in just 17 games for champs Souths in 1951.
Along with an eight-match tryscoring streak, the winger bagged 11 tries in the last five games of the season – including a grand final record four tries in Souths’ 42-14 win over Manly.
Graves finished as one of the few players in premiership history with a career strike-rate of better than a try per game, scoring 79 tries in 77 games.
TRIES AFTER NINE GAMES: 15
Tom Trbojevic (Manly) – 28 tries (2021)
Along with winning the Dally M Medal despite playing just 15 regular-season games, ‘Turbo’ broke Phil Blake’s club record with 28 tries in a mere 18 appearances in 2021.
The fullback scored in all but three games and finished with five hat-tricks. The injury-prone game-breaker has 117 tries in 176 NRL games for the Sea Eagles to his credit.
The 2021 season also saw teammates Jason Saab (26) and Reuben Garrick (23) rack up huge try tallies – but Johnston took out the Ken Irvine Medal.
TRIES AFTER NINE GAMES: 14
Rod O’Loan (Eastern Suburbs) – 27 tries (1935)
Despite teammate Brown hogging the scoresheet on a weekly basis with 38 tries, Easts winger O’Loan still managed to post what remained the second-highest individual season total in the premiership for more than a decade.
O’Loan’s 27 tries came in 18 games, scoring in a record 13 straight games at one stage – including a seven-try effort (one short of Glebe forward Frank Burge’s premiership record) in a match against former club University.
Also going off for 20 tries in just 14 games the following season, O’Loan retired in 1941 with 88 tries from 111 first-grade games.
TRIES AFTER NINE GAMES: 16
Norm Jacobson (Newtown) – 27 tries (1948)
A NSW rep in 1945, Jacobson had scored 42 tries in 70 games for Newtown leading into the 1948 season. A five-try haul in Round 2 against Parramatta set him up for a bumper year and he finished with 27 tries in just 19 games.
It wasn’t enough to get him a spot on the Kangaroo Tour at the end of the year, however, and Jacobson left Sydney to take up a captain-coach position in bush footy.
TRIES AFTER NINE GAMES: 15
Phil Blake (Manly) – 27 tries (1983)
The 1982 Dally M Rookie of the Year, 19-year-old Manly halfback Blake seemed destined for superstardom when he scored 27 tries in his sophomore campaign in 24 games – the most scored by any player in 29 years.
Blake scored a hat-trick in the opening round (including the first-ever four-point try in first grade) and picked up four tries in Round 3, while he pieced together a 10-match run of dotting down at least once before tapering off over the back end of a season that finished with a grand final loss to Parramatta.
The versatile nomad finished a six-club career with 138 tries in 271 games. He later scored nine tries in the Warriors’ first four games at fullback in 1995.
TRIES AFTER NINE GAMES: 15
Nathan Blacklock (St George Illawarra) – 27 tries (2001)
Modern era master Blacklock scored 121 tries in 142 games – and his run of three straight NRL tryscoring titles culminated in the highest individual season tally in 18 years.
The St George Illawarra wing wizard started 2001 slow but dotted down in 18 of his last 24 games and collected two hat-tricks to finish with 27 tries in 28 appearances. It would be another two decades before another play reached 27 tries in a season again.
TRIES AFTER NINE GAMES: 6