ENGLAND can thank the considerable contribution from James Roby after they bounced back from an awful start to draw first blood in the three-match test series against the Kiwis.

The Saints hooker came off the bench 20 minutes into the first test at Hull’s KC Stadium and immediately sharpened up England’s direction from dummy half.

Steve McNamara’s plan is clearly to let Josh Hodgson take the early fire before unleashing Roby, in a way the Saints number nine used to work in tandem with Keiron Cunningham.

Some would say that was the perfect tactic and that it ensured the Saints rake was at his freshest to exploit the Kiwis for a good chunk of the game.

That sort of thinking surely belongs in a 2006 time-warp; Roby is no longer an impact player who needs protecting from the full frontal fire of the early intensity, but a battle-hardened, skilful warrior with an armoury of defensive and attacking tools that need to be deployed against Issac Luke from the start.

The Kiwis clearly knew he was a threat and Roby was walloped by Sam Moa in the 59th minute and needed the obligatory head check before returning unaffected.

England’s start at Hull was awful and there was a chance that England could have been out of it by the time Roby appeared.

Hodgson had just scored a very fortunate try to get England a toe-hold in the game when Roby entered the fray, but the Kiwis were dominant for the first half an hour.

Physically they seemed more up for it, and were offloading for fun to keep the hosts on the back foot.

England’s bench helped massively and slowly but surely England began to physically match their New Zealand counterparts with Tom Burgess showing that he does not have to live in the shadow of his brothers with a muscular effort in attack and defence.

Back-row forward Brett Ferres ran strongly for two of England’s four tries.

England wrapped it up when skipper Sean O’Loughlin dropped counterpart Adam Blair like a sack of spuds on his way to the try line.

Although this victory will put a smile on a few faces after the bitter disappointment of the defeat by the Kiwis in the 2013 World Cup semi-final England still have work to do.

Saturday’s rugby league debut at London’s Olympic Stadium should be the perfect place to build on Sunday’s promising start.

But if they start in a similar fashion the Kiwis won’t be as charitable a second time