TOP 12 FINISHERS

It's try-time as we run down a list of our favourite scorers across the global game down the years

- ALAN DYMOCK

WHAT IS a finisher? No, not the oh-so modern relabelling of a substitute – we're talking about those ruthless players

who have made an art of scoring the try. Some do it with panache. Some are simply always in the right place at the right time, like the most established TV detectives. We’ve put together a list of our 12 favourite try-getters, with some stone-cold legends mixed in with a few chart-toppers and even some contemporary stars who have already bagged super scores that will be on highlight reels forever. Let's dive in…

Shane Williams Wales

A sprite-like figure, there was certainly plenty of tricksy and cunning about how Williams approached rugby. But he also punched well above his weight. A true Welsh icon and fourth on the all-time Test try-scorer list with 60, he could pull off the impossible when all other outcomes looked lost to his side.

There was the dramatic late winner against Scotland in 2010; the kick-chase-sprint score in 2005 that helped beat Australia for the first time in 18 years; a delicious score in the Grand Slam-securing win over England in 2005; a truly silly score against Argentina in 2009. Fellow Welsh hero Ieuan Evans called him “an arch poacher who scores tries for fun”.

Jonah Lomu New Zealand 

The OG. The Boogeyman. The first-ever true rugby superstar. The sight of Jonah Lomu steamrollering English players in the 1995 World Cup was breathtaking, but then he was also doing it in sevens, in Super Rugby and across Tests.