Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
ROBY’S A GREAT FIT
St Helens star owes it to his kids
St Helens v Catalans Today, 12.30pm NON-STOP James Roby has lifted the lid on how he keeps going when others falter – by imagining he’s rescuing his two children from danger.
The evergreen St Helens star has been in sparkling form this season, and is seen as team-mate Ben Barba’s main rival for the Man of Steel.
Roby, 32, regularly produces stats that shame younger opponents. Coach
Justin Holbrook waxes lyrical about his star’s remarkable stamina.
Fellow Saint Jon Wilkin revealed earlier this year that the veteran hooker is virtually unbeatable in the pre-season bleep test – and
Roby had told him he pretended he was running to save his kids Ollie, 10, and Athelia, five, in an emergency.
Roby takes that same motivational mind game on to the field to inspire him to make the damaging runs and tackles that others can’t.
He said: “It sounds a bit silly, but I have done it in certain scenarios. I think they were on about the bleep test at the beginning of the year, and I get into the mindset of doing whatever I’ve got to do to win the thing.
“There’s definitely points in a game when I’m knackered, trying to get back onside and there’s a big bloke about to run at you. You’ve just got to motivate yourself to do it, however you can.”
One-club Roby is as desperate as anybody to end St Helens’ 10-year Wembley exile by beating Catalans today in the Challenge Cup semi-final – having made history at the national stadium earlier in his career.
Roby got the first ever try at the new Wembley in the 2007 win over Hull FC. He also ran out at the old stadium as a schoolboy 10 years earlier. He recalled: “Me and James Graham played for St Helens at Under-11s. There was a bomb scare on the day, so we only played about five or six minutes each way.
“It was still a great occasion and as a kid we were made up to be at Wembley on the pitch.
“Everybody in St Helens wants us to get there again – but we’ve got a job at hand to get past Catalans first.”