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....