Parramatta powerhouse Maika Sivo’s barnstorming double on Thursday night – including an unforgettable late match-winner to sink Melbourne – was the latest chapter in rugby league’s rich narrative of big men starring on the flank.
The 105kg Sivo is carrying the torch passed on by modern era tearaways such as Eels predecessor Semi Radradra, Wests Tigers freight train Taniela Tuiaki and the irrepressible John Hopoate.
In the first edition of Zero Tackle’s Top 8, WILL EVANS from This Warriors Life ranks the greatest wing behemoths the game has produced.
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1. Billy Boston
Tipping the scales at 15 stone during his career – a veritable goliath for a winger in the 1950s and ’60s – Billy Boston is still regarded as the greatest-ever player to don the cherry and white of Wigan. The Cardiff rugby union product scored 478 tries in 488 games for the famous English club, plus another five in 11 appearances for Blackpool Borough, to sit behind only incomparable Aussie (and, build-wise, Boston’s physical polar opposite) Brian Bevan.
Boston’s burly frame was complemented by rare speed, a superb swerve and a powerful fend. He was also a pioneer. The son of an Irish mother and a father from Sierra Leone, Boston became the first black player to tour Australia and New Zealand with Great Britain – selected for the 1954 Lions after just a handful of games for Wigan and responding with a record 36 tries in just 18 games. Boston finished with 24 tries in 31 Tests and was one of the original nine inductees to the RFL Hall of Fame in 1988.
