By JOHN DAVIDSON
AMAZING, OUTSTANDING, one of a kind.
The extraordinary career of James Roby is coming to an end. Extraordinary doesn’t quite cover the pure phenomenon that is Roby. For 20 years the hooker has starred for St Helens, for England and Great Britain, driving standards and leading from the front.
Along the way he has helped Saints win countless games and collected an immense haul of silverware. He has captained his club with class and humility, and been a role model to many.
Roby will take the field against Catalans in the semi-finals this weekend. It will be his last-ever if the Dragons prevail. But considering the hooker’s ability, and his team’s propensity for success over the past five years, only a brave person would bet against St Helens advancing next week in the playoffs.
A send-off for Roby at Old Trafford would be fitting for one of the greatest English players of all-time, perhaps the best of the Super League era.
Inspirational, humble, a pure competitor.
Roby is the kind of rare player who garners wide respect from pundits, rival fans and opponents alike. Former Super League star and Great Britain international Brian Carney describes the hooker like this:
“It was said to me once that consistency precedes brilliance. Well in the history of Super League, better-versed historians than me will look back further, there has not been a more consistently brilliant player than James Roby.
“In fact, daylight might be second. More importantly than all that, he sits comfortably amongst the nicest humans you could meet.”
Carney’s fellow TV pundit, ex-forward enforcer Barrie McDermott, is equally effusive: “He’s a great bloke and worthy of all the accolades. I’d put him in the same bracket as Farrell, Peacock, Sculthorpe and Sinfield to name a few.
“The secret of how he has been able to sustain his level of performance would be like finding the holy grail or the fountain of youth. He has played nearly every minute of every game after Keiron Cunningham retired.
“He is perpetual motion in a game – never stops moving, never stops thinking, never stop scheming.”
Brilliant, remarkable, record-breaking.
Roby’s feats on the field cannot be questioned, let alone his impressive longevity. He debuted in 2004 and no player has made more appearances for St Helens, or more in the history of Super League. His ability to play at a high level consistently for 20 seasons is simply ridiculous.
While early in his career Roby’s play was more built around speed around the ruck and impact off the bench, as his game evolved his decision-making, intelligence and footy brain have come to the fore. Never the biggest, tallest or strongest, Roby has long been one of the smartest.
Hull KR hooker Matt Parcel has played against the St Helens talisman for seven years and is an admirer.
“I think Roby’s ability to play so consistently well over such a long period is just unbelievably impressive,” he said.
“Playing nine, I think being a consistent player is so important for a team, you kind of start every play and touch the ball more than anyone else so for Roby to play so well week in, week out every game is what makes him such a special player.
“He always puts 100% effort into everything he does on the field and he is obviously a big reason why St Helens have been such a successful club over the years.
“In regards to best players in Super League history, I was lucky enough to play with Danny McGuire and obviously against Roby and for me, Danny and James Roby are right up there for best players to have played Super League.”
Like Parcell, Salford fullback Ryan Brierley has played against Roby many times and regards him as “one of the greatest to ever do it”.
“His resilience, his mental toughness to keep doing it when everyone else is tired,” Brierley says.
“His fitness and dedication to his teammates. A player I wish I would have had the chance to play alongside The best hooker Super League has ever seen in the last two decades.”
Modest, heroic, legendary.
To Australians, you could class Roby as ‘the English Cameron Smith’. He is that good, has been that influential at nine, has won so much and led his club and country with success and distinction for so long.
Like Smith, his game has not been built on immense physical attributes but on bravery, brains, toughness and an unrelenting desire to be competitive and win. Like Smith, he has stayed with one club his whole career,
Perhaps one of the 37-year-old’s greatest attributes is how he carries himself on and off the field. You won’t find a person who has a bad word to say about Roby, the player or the man, which in a brutal but often nefarious sport such as rugby league is unique.
Roby has never courted publicity, the media or stardom. He has never sought accolades and praise. He has just quietly gone about his business and done his job.
Broadcaster and former GB and Wigan prop Terry O’Connor recounts a story of when he ran into the hooker and his teammates last year in Dublin, while on the stag do of his son Jared, the Leeds forward, a mere week after St Helens had beat the Rhinos in the 2022 grand final.
“Straight away James Roby is over and shaking Jared’s hands and asking how he was. He was brilliant. What you get with James is he realised when he first came in [to Super League], he gets that there’s things outside of sport.
“He knows you have to work hard, and he saw what rugby league was like before the Super League era. He’s seen that and he took his chance with both hands.
“Saints have been successful for so long because of people like him. He set those standards and carried that club forward.
“You have to recognise how loyal he’s been. There’s been clubs from Australia who’ve been desperate to get hold of him. He’s a credit to the sport.
“What’s he’s done, what’s he achieved, how he’s carried himself. The role model he’s been for many young kids around St Helens.”
O’Connor not only played against ‘Robes’ in the naughties, but has watched the Saints man’s career blossom over the years.
“Just look at Super League history, it’s fair to say Saints have had the best two hookers in Super League history. Him and Keiron Cunningham, they’re both local lads.
“When Roby broke on the scene and won Man of Steel in 2007, he won it coming off the bench, and you wondered then how long they can hold on to him.
“Genuinely, I couldn’t split them two. I thought Keiron was sensational. To have Roby in the same conversation, and you can’t split him, shows how good he is.
“He’s a great lad. If you met him in the pub you’d just think he’s a bald bloke with a broken nose. He’s one of the humblest guys I’ve ever met.”
Unique, quiet, dignified.
Warrington’s Daryl Clark will join St Helens next year and take Roby’s spot. Clark is a classy player, a former Man of Steel winner who has played for his country many times, but it is like trying to replace the irreplaceable. It can’t be done.
“Like the very best of those who have completely perfected their art and craft, James Roby’s brilliance is too often taken for granted,” Phil Caplan, editor of Forty20 magazine, says.
“If a pass goes slightly astray or a break attempting to punish tired markers is stopped at the gain line, it becomes newsworthy because he has all but perfected the modern hooker’s art to the point of it being imperceptible.
“The fact that he has so consistently done that over such a long period of time in a position where action and involvement is unrelenting is astonishing.
“Like the true greats, he has also reinvented himself as the game changed from a back-up off the bench who used his speed as his primary weapon, to one the best game managers the modern sport has seen – in terms of outstanding performance in the pivotal role, ranking alongside Cameron Smith for influence.
“Never one to seek the limelight, his deeds have not been widely enough appreciated but he is the engine room of the greatest side of the summer era, we will not see his like again in the foreseeable future.”
For 80 minutes more, or perhaps 160 at the most, enjoy the final acts of James William Mark Roby. Sometimes you only fully appreciate what you have until it’s gone.
Rugby league has been blessed to have him, and we are unlikely to see another like him.
Simply the best.
