Roberts in no hurry to race the ‘Hammer’

EVEN South Sydney speedster James Roberts admits he wouldn’t want to take on young Cowboys flyer Hamiso “The Hammer” Tabuai-Fidow in a foot race.

The lightning fast former Cairns Kangaroos junior caught everyone’s attention at last weekend’s NRL Nines tournament in Perth, showing off his blistering speed to score four incredible tries.

Figures show the 18-yearold can run a 100m sprint in just 10.85 seconds – fast enough to rival some of the NRL’s speed machines like Roberts and Melbourne flyer Josh Addo-Carr.

At his fastest, Addo-Carr last year ran 10.7 metres per second.

Roberts and Addo-Carr this week came into the Indigenous All Stars camp on the Gold Coast and much of the talk has been about young TabuaiFidow.

“I’ve heard about him actually,” Roberts said.

“We were geeing up Foxxy (Josh Addo-Carr) about it.

“It would be interesting to see him and Fox have a race (but) I’ll leave that race to them.

“I can’t be bothered doing that kind of stuff.

“I’ll save it for the field.” Roberts has been hampered by an Achilles injury for the past two years which has sapped him of the electrifying speed he was once renowned for.

The Rabbitohs centre has been working on improving his speed and acceleration over the off-season in a bid to get back to his scintillating best.

He said the tag of being the fastest man in the league was one he wasn’t worried about anymore as he eyed his first full NRL season since 2018.

“I just want to try and play some good footy this year,” he said.