are we basing our wingers purely on try scoring records, or other abilities like being able to defend, bring the ball out of back play, and bust tackles?

Bar none

Bevan was also nominated as a candidate for Australian 'Immortal' status a couple of months ago as he is in the Aus RL Hall of Fame. Backed by several NRL pundits but not successful this time.

First saw him play when I was 10 years old and 70 years later is still the greatest winger I have ever seen.

Indeed he is the Cronulla fullback who only plays on the wing for Aus. and Queensland. With the retirement of Billy Slater he will probably contest the fullback role for Qld. next year with Ponga.

Holmes is one of those natural tryscorers, but his game is developing and he'll be a class full back. He may play a lot of games on the wing at rep level, like Darius Boyd before him, because he'll still be a very good winger.

It includes a fair chunk from his spell in Australia and the International game too. I was more referring to him in comparison to some of the try tallies being suggested as they were over a relatively short period of 3 or 4 seasons or even less.

Tough call who is the absolute best as it can't be just about try scoring as the job description has changed massively over the years. As many others have pointed out Bevan would be in a league of his own in terms of try scoring. Would he be as good doing the job of the modern winger though? He certainly didn't have the build of a Ryan Hall or Vainikolo for example. Interesting topic but I'm not fully convinced that there's a 'best of all time' anyway. That said, if you asked which winger I'd like to see lining up for my team now, Offiah would be damned high up on that list!

When Bev was playing there was a certain Billy Boston plying his trade at Wigan! If you're talking "big winger" there's your role model. Billy Boston was also named in the inaugural Hall of Fame and is rightly a legend in the town of Wigan and across our game. His arrival at Wigan was so anticipated that over 7,000 went to an A Grade game to watch his first game!
Back in the 90s one of the big joys of a southerner like me travelling to Central Park was to go to the Griffin before the game to see Billy in action! Had the pleasure of meeting him a few times in recent years; a great guy even as his health deteriorates.
Let's treasure our game's legends - and there is 100 years to celebrate before Super League started - a mention should also be made of Albert Rosenfeld who scored a record 80 tries in one season for what may well be our greatest ever team (another opinion thread to come!) the Huddersfield "Team of All the Talents"icon_wink.gif.
Hold a gun to my head and Bev is my greatest ever winger.

Tom Johnstone for me atm

I have revised the title of this thread and added a poll.

The original intent of this thread was to argue about the best winger in the world today, not the best winger of all time. Unfortunately other contributors did not understand this and contributed opinions on the best winger of all time.

So I have made my intention explicit in the title, and added the poll.

Please vote if you can.

Why?
Seriously, you're begging me to tick a box to select the best winger in my opinion....but why? Are we going to have a RLFANS award cast is granite for them, so you can present it to them?
It's an inane thread and for the record, I can't vote for some reason, but if push came to shove, Tommy M's performance at Anfield was as complete a game I have seen from any player this year.....so Makinson in terms of 2018.

Valentine Holmes performance against Tonga was outstanding. Unfortunately the international scheduling did not give Valentine Holmes as many chances to shine as it gave Thomas Makinson.

Done to death this one. Anyone interested can look at the votes !

I voted for Johnstone because he is the winger with the greatest potential although he is clearly behind Makinson at the moment. Best I ever saw though, was Lesley Vainikolo

It's what he does. Between bans! I think it's a form of Aspergers myself.