St Helens’ James Roby: ‘This is a hard game that puts you in dark places’

“I don’t mind a bit of pain every now and again as it reminds you that you’re alive,” James Roby says with a smiley little grimace on a sun-kissed winter afternoon in St Helens. The 37-year-old captain of the Super League champions will soon reflect on Saints’ remarkable victory against Penrith Panthers in Australia this month when they won the World Club Challenge. As the first British team to win the competition away from home since Wigan in 1994, St Helens have built a sustained success exemplified by Roby’s astonishing consistency after 20 years at the peak of a brutal sport.

“I’ve played it for a long, long time,” Roby says in his quietly compelling way. “As you age you get a bit stiffer and more sore in the morning. I come into training and we’ve got lots of young lads bouncing around, without a care in the world. I walk in like I’ve just been in a car crash. I’ve got scars everywhere and I’ve probably injured every part of my body. Fingers, hands, broke my nose loads of times, fractured ribs, sternum and I’ve had seven operations – both ankles done, clean out on my shoulder, elbow and knee but they’re relatively small. I’ve had two groin surgeries which were the biggest ones. If we hadn’t got to the bottom of the problem with the groin surgery in 2019 it would have been the end at 33-ish. So I am lucky to still be playing.”

A year ago, as Roby recalls, “I’d announced that it was my last season as I’d just signed a one-year deal. I had a few grumbling issues that could do with fixing and it’s harder being an older player. But, mentally, I was still there. I was still ready for the fight, I was still wanting to be competitive, training and playing games. But as the season progressed [playing on another year]