ANOTHER week, another top drawer performance from James Roby which provokes the question as to just where are they going to put the statue when he finally does hang up his boots?

That day seems a long, long way off after once again the dynamic number nine belied his 33 years to provide energy and enthusiasm on both sides of the ball in Saints' 26-4 win at Salford.

Nothing summed up his display, likely to have secured another three points on the Steve Prescott Man of Steel reckoning, more than his second try in the dying minutes when the game was already won.

Golden Boot Tommy Makinson had sped 80-metres upfield before being halted short of the line but as the beleaguered and bedraggled Red Devils defenders tracked back, the Saints skipper, running around like a spring chicken despite making 50 tackles nonchalantly collected Lachlan Coote's feed to cross on the flank.

Roby's display was immense in what was a team effort which squeezed the life out of a Salford side that had started this year's campaign brightly.

Big men Alex Walmsley and Luke Thompson again stood out, thundering the ball up and eating the yards against a Red Devils pack that became increasingly depleted as the game wore on.

Defensively Saints were excellent, not just in their own 20 in defending their line, but especially in yardage where they really stopped the hosts from building any momentum.

They also kept Salford's danger men Robert Lui and Jackson Hastings in check, reducing them to a mere consolation score from Derrell Olpherts from a kick - the only time the line was breached.

In awful murky and wet conditions, after the premature spring had decided to go back in the box, Saints produced a steady patient performance that learned from some of the errors from a panicky first 40 from the week previously.

And credit for that control should go to the Theo Fages, Jonny Lomax and Lachlan Coote triumvirate.

Coote probably had his best game yet, with just the one error, despite the testing conditions.

Fages appears to be growing into his role at seven ­— and even his kicking game showed a marked improvement, with his kick yielding the first score for Mark Percival.

St Helens Star:

The Frenchman's dogged, determined defence for a small man has always stood out, but with the ball he again showed his braveness in taking the ball to the teeth of the defence to create those opportunities.

And that is just what he did before whipping out a peach of a pass, cutting out two men, for half back partner Lomax to dummy and step his way back inside for Saints' second.

Even late in the game, it was Fages' pick up and dash that set up Makinson's run ahead of Roby's final score.

By that stage Saints had already built an unassailable lead with Regan Grace's score from the scrum snuffing out Salford's attempts at reviving it as a contest.

No wonder the travelling contingent who swelled a poor Thursday night gate past the 4,000 mark, went home happy despite some of them shelling out £27.

Saints: Coote; Makinson, Costello, Percival, Grace; Lomax, Fages; Walmsley, Roby, Thompson, Taia, Peyroux, Knowles. Subs: Lees, McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Paulo, Amor.

Salford: Evalds; Olpherts, Welham, Sa'u, Sio; Lui, Hastings; Mossop, Lussick, Dudson, Jones, Turgut, G Griffin. Subs: McCarthy, Nakubuwai, Burke, L Tomkins.