Super League: St Helens 26-12 Salford Red Devils - James Roby reaches landmark in Saints fightback

James Roby surpassed Kel Coslett's 531 games with this appearance for Saints

St Helens ripped Salford Red Devils apart with a second-half comeback to hand James Roby a victory on his record-breaking 532nd club appearance.

Salford roared in front in the opening 40 with Brodie Croft and Ryan Brierley tries, while James Bell notched a Saints score to reduce the arrears.

The second half was a different story as Curtis Sironen, Jonny Lomax, Tommy Makinson and Joe Batchelor all scored.

By contrast, Salford failed to score a second-half point.

Their four-game winning run comes to an end, while reigning champions Saints have a welcome sixth win of the season, to move within eight points of leaders Warrington.

History-making Roby sheepishly accepted his guard of honour and the fluttering of 'Roby 9' banners detailing his feat around the ground beforehand, although it is not in his team ethic and lead-by-example demeanour to bask in such a spotlight.

It looked for the opening half an hour at least as if his occasion could be spoilt, as a slew of errors and penalties continued to hand Salford momentum, opportunity and genuine hope of a first win at Saints since 1980.

Credit to the visitors, they opened Saints up from deep with ease for their two scores, with King Vuniyayawa's burst through the middle finished off by Croft and Brierley worked an inside-outside move with Kallum Watkins for his score.

Yet for their scoreboard dominance in the first period, Salford trailed Saints on some of the key indicators such as metres made and territory.

Roby grabbed the moment to give Saints some foothold, evading tackles to set a platform, and Sironen piled through and flicked to set up Bell's try towards the end of the first half.

It was hardly the flick of the switch that Saints needed as they finished the half with further sluggish play, but that momentum shift was exactly what occurred after the break.

With a quickened-up ruck, the monstrous pack of Matty Lees, Alex Walmsley and Sironen battering their way forward, and the Saints' brains trust scheming behind it, the pendulum swung.

Lomax supplied Sironen with a short ball to blast his way across, and then accepted a gift of a wayward pass just outside the Saints line to add a score of his own.

Makinson summoned up a typical spectacular dive in the corner, while Batchelor made the most of delicious shape from the combining Lewis Dodd and Lomax to streak across.

Salford remained game but their errors blighted them, and Roby was able to soak up an ovation when he was replaced with five minutes to go.

St Helens head coach Paul Wellens:

"Robes [James Roby] is the greatest player in Super League history and that is undeniable. He won Man of Steel in 2007 and I reckon he's had 10 seasons better than that.

"That just gives an indication of how incredible he is. His brilliance has almost become normality over a 20-year period.

"I actually went out for dinner last Saturday with my wife and Robes and his wife. We had a conversation and at no point did I try and persuade him to do another year.

"I think his mind is firmly made up and it's a smart decision on his part. We want him to send him off as a champion later this year."

On the performance: "At half-time I wasn't overly disappointed. I thought we just had a couple of defensive lapses which cost us.

"We just needed to tidy up our discipline with the ball and we got that in the second half."

Salford head coach Paul Rowley:

"We definitely left a lot of points on the field but discipline with the ball hurt us more than anything.

"They beat us up in the second half which was disappointing, but there's stuff we'll look back on and say, 'we left a lot on the field. We didn't show our best in that second half'.

"Our ball control was woeful to be honest. We probably needed a couple of strong decisions as well, they would've helped but we left too much on the field."

St Helens: Welsby; Makinson, Hopoate, Davies, Ritson; Lomax, Dodd; Walmsley, Roby, Lees, Sironen, Batchelor, Bell

Interchanges: Bennison, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Wingfield, Delaney [Lussick]

Salford: Brierley; Williams, Costello, Cross, Burgess; Croft, Sneyd; Dupree, Ackers, Vuniyayawa, Watkins, Stone, Partington

Interchanges: Atkin, Wright, Gerrard, Longstaff [Ormondroyd]

Referee: Chris Kendall.

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