As a Leeds fan I obviously don't get to see James Roby as often as you guys. Just thought over the last half dozen times i've seen him his impact certainly has decreased?

Always punched holes from dummy half through most defences in SL but lately seems only mildly effective?

In your opinions is it simply other sides have "gameplanned" effectively or has your pack gone backwards?

I think the fact the play of the ball has been slowed down has affected his game. FWIW I think the play of the ball chnages have allowed defences to tighten up and made the game more boring in general too .

Saints IMO have been a lot more defence orientated this year and that’s not Robys game so that’s why I think he's not been as stand out as previous years, still a great player that would get in any SL team.

Indeed. Him and Pryce have suffered most from this.

IMO the slowing down of the play the ball was necessary - SL had evolved into five scoots and a kick, with teams intent on finding the floor quickly to enable their nippy players to get out of dummy half.

Making more use of the surrender call where a player deliberately goes off his feet as soon as he is touched means that this kind of play isnt rewarded as much as it was.

Over time, teams and players will have to come up with strategies to break down a set defence rather than just relying on quick play the balls, which will benefit the game in this country.

People miss much of what Roby does because he isn't making 40 meter breaks any more.

Watch him in defence, he is tireless, constantly making a bigger man hit the deck. Watch him take the ball up, he consistently makes 5-10 yards after impact.

His game has had to evolve, but because we are not seeing him hit a gap like in the past, people fail to recognise his effort.

you might be right but I think we need to try and find a happy medium. Some games this year and I dont just mean Saints games have been dire to watch. Slow, tedius games that turn into a forwards grind then a kick (unless your Saints because we just throw the ball to the nearest man and turn it over). It's just not good to watch.

I think it's mainly supporters of other clubs that think Roby has gone off the boil. I think most Saints fans still recognise the effort he puts in and the ability he has.

According to Clarke before kick off, he is also the no.1 meter maker from 'scoots' in the league too. KC 2nd.

This doesn't show the metres made made but the number of "scoots"
[urlhttp://www.superleague.co.uk/statistics_player.php?season=2009&stat=run_from_dummy_half&hs1=2009&hp1=2501&hs2=2009&hp2=1845[/url

IMO it's the most boring tactic in Rugby League. Maybe we should go back to the "very old rule" whereby if the dummy half gets tackled in possession then it's a handover or a scrum.

Inclined to agree with you. It was one of the reasons the RFL changed the interpretation of the PTB.

Unfortunately as opposed to tag rugby we now have matress rugby.

Needs to be a balance

To agree with Ski, watch his defence. He's normally one of our top tacklers, despite only being on the pitch for 50 mins. He's also started to put quite a bit of weight into his tackles.

His service from DH is better than you think, because we associate him so strongly with the quick play and scoot you almost assume his passing will be poor. He's also obviously been working on his long kicking game.

He's suffered from two things, the PTB being slowed down and our pack losing strength. Its a team game after all....

Slowing it down a bit, yes, but sheesh ... it's come to a grinding halt! We've all had a three course meal and a snooze before the tackle is done.

Roby has had a very good season.

Because defences are tougher he isnt running riot in midfield. However he is still making strong runs, lots of yards, tackle busts and also tackling. He also has developed his kicking game so is a better all round player.

Roby has also played a number of games this season at loose forward.

Many fans expect him to adopt that position in the side next season with Scott Moore and KC occupying the hooking spots

I hope not for the majority of the season.

Cunningham has been average by anyones standards this year, if he hadn't been so great in the past he'd not have got the leeway everyone has given him.

To me, the only reason they slowed the play the ball down is because we got slaughtered at the World Cup and this was used as the excuse, and as usual we decided to copy the NRL's way of doing things. Well, we are already behind, because the play the ball over there is as quick as ever with two referees in charge. 60-0 drubbings for England anyone?

The current enthusiasm for slowing the play the ball down will be blown out the water when the Oz boys come across and murder us with their lightening quick ptb.

Not sure who's reffing the games, but if we do get an oz ref we'll be penalised out of the game.

Difference is their fast ptb is often about getting the ball out to first receiver and then fast hands rather than scooting for soft metres



Maybe it needed to slow down for it to speed up again? I dunno really. It's certainly a lot harder to scoot for metres in the NRL regardless of how fast the ptb is.

Changes around the ptb have exposed Roby in exactly the same way England were exposed at the world cup;

Attacking threat based all around fast ptb and scooting and no real class in quality and speed of passing the ball from dummy half.

Roby now is seen as what he is: a good committed solid RL player, tackles well, runs hard, doesn't take a backward step, good team player, but no superstar, and not someone who is going to control a game or who you can build a team around.

Someone else who agrees with me on the "style" of hookers in our game.
It's not a criticism of Roby as such, more a criticism of the way the hooking role has evolved.

The 10 meter rule made it easy for the "scooters" and flat pass. Why we jumped from 5 metres to 10 in one go is a mystery, surely they could have tried 7 or 8 metres.

The refs have enough problem making it ten meters when the lines are their to help them. It would have been foolish to confuse them with a digit that required they used some form of intelligence.

Interesting that, much has been made of Saints experienced players coming up with dumb plays in the GF that lead to points, but I've seen very few people slate Cunningham for possibly the dumbest of the lot that handed the lead back to Leeds.

what have you been smokeing??

Roby is a great kid and i think when the time comes he will step in to KC's shoes but we look a far better team when cunningham is the pitch END OF!!!!


i think KC and roby have made more runs from dummy half to try and get that roll for the rest of the set, but when the refs are letting defenders have a little nap in the tackle it wont look at deverstateing as past years but roby still has it and when that defance is slow getting back so see how quick he is

We have gone from one extreme to another. The game has been dumbed down, because the defensive team requires no skill to keep hold of the player for longer. The majority of slow play the balls aren't because players are wrestling on the floor, or putting the player on his back, or putting more players into each tackle. The referees are just watching on as players don't let the player get up. They even turn around to look at the ref, to see if he is losing his patience.

It is not only boring to watch, its embarrassing.

I am quite happy having slower play the balls, if the defence earns. It has to be fair, and teams have to be rewarded for skill.

A slower game will require teams to do more than scoot and get a back pedalling defence to punch holes in. Hopefully this will bring back talented game opening scrum halfs.

But, it must be a middle ground. Not the rubbish we have been subjected to this season.

I have only seen one NRL game this season, but they seem to have gotten it right. There ruck was fair and no nonsense. You stopped thinking about interference at the PTB, and just enjoyed the game.

We'll have probably gone from not being able to score without a quick PTB to not being able to defend one.