Sports fandom is a funny thing. You spend basically all of your time dreaming about the best-case scenarios for your favourite teams and players, only for it to end in crushing disappointment and failure 99 per cent of the time. Fairy tales, by and large, are not real. Things you fantasise about happening years down the line, for the most part, don't happen.
And yet, here we are.
Set your mind back to 2014 for a second. It was only a fortnight after the legendary Nathan Merritt had broken the Rabbitohs' all-time try scoring record that he was dropped, with an unknown 18-year-old named Alex Johnston being thrown in on the wing in front of 45,000 people on Anzac Day.
That game is best remembered for Greg Inglis' incredible solo try, but it was also the start of what is now the most-prolific career in the history of the NRL.
Ironically, Johnston's debut try was completely dissimilar to what we've come to expect from him. Rather than a swift backline movement and that trademark turn of pace from ten metres out to beat his opposite man to the left-hand corner, it was a chip kick from Adam Reynolds to the right-hand side, which Johnston came down with and finished superbly inside the corner post.
Despite what I said earlier, Johnston's first season was about as close to a fairy tale as you can get. Going from a young kid pretending to be Greg Inglis in a television commercial, to scoring in the same Grand Final as his idol in a drought-breaking premiership win, being the NRL's top try scorer, and being picked in the Australian squad for the Four Nations.
So many players burst onto the scene with a rookie year try glut, but very few have even got close to Ken Irvine's 212 four-pointers. There are a variety of reasons for this; falling out of favour, moving positions, changing teams and not being in as palatable a situation for an outside back, or simply just not maintaining the same scoring pace.
Which is why this record isn't just about Johnston; it's about the players who helped get him there, first Inglis, Luke Keary, and others, and then later Cody Walker and Latrell Mitchell.
It's about the team that loves him - Johnston has always been an extremely popular member of the squad. This was probably most-evident in the 2020 season, when five tries in the final game of the season, including an absolute gift from Corey Allan, enabled Johnston to finish the year with another Ken Irvine Medal.
And perhaps most importantly, it's about the fanbase who came close to rioting in the streets when there were strong rumours that he was leaving to pursue a career at fullback at another club - plenty of talented wingers have had their heads turned by the idea of wearing the number one jersey elsewhere, and Johnston was no exception.
He ended up in that role at Souths for a couple of years before the arrival of Mitchell shunted him back out to the wing, which is where he has remained for five years.
And this is why what we've just seen tonight is so remarkable - if Johnston leaves the club, as he could have done multiple times, if Walker, who washed out at several teams before becoming a modern-day great at Souths, never arrives, or if Mitchell stays at the Roosters long-term, it's likely this record never happens. If Johnston never recovers from a torn achilles in 2024, as many athletes don't, we're not sitting here today celebrating this achievement.
Sports analysis and fandom has become increasingly cynical, and social media has hyper-accelerated that. Which is why this Johnston moment is such a nice tonic. Regardless of where you look, it's effusive praise and words of encouragement from people across the rugby league community.
Even the Roosters, like the crotchety old man who sees the light at the end of a movie, acquiesced to public demand and graciously agreed to honour Johnston if the record were to fall on Allianz Stadium soil.
The discourse around what would happen on the day of the record in terms of crowd management and recognition, which dragged on over two separate years after last season ended, almost overshadowed the achievement itself.
We collectively became obsessed with whether or not the NRL would get its 'Buddy Franklin moment' - but that's the thing about all the best moments. They happen spontaneously, you can't plan or structure for it - because once you start doing that, the magic dissipates.
Thankfully, none of that matters now - and regardless of how people thought it should be handled, it was still a moment we won't ever forget.