SAINTS’ recruitment plans for 2023 have been amended with the decision by skipper James Roby to play on for another year.

Head coach Kristian Woolf said: “If he was to have retired we would have had to look for a No9 but now we don’t.

“So it does effect the recruitment in that way.

“We’re not going to be overly active in the recruitment area.

“We’ve obviously got a winger to replace and we’ll be looking to do that, and there might be one other player at some level that comes in.

“But in general we’re going to be a fairly stable squad and I think the squad is a really good squad.

“You take out the fact we’ve had an unprecedented amount of injuries, we’ve got terrific depth there and we’ve got some young blokes who are getting great experience at the moment.

“They will learn a lot from Friday night’s game against Wigan. There’s some young guys who never thought they’d be playing in a game like that and they’ll learn a lot from it.”

In Woolf’s post-match press conference, he spoke more about Roby’s decision to sign a one-year contract extension – news which had broken earlier that day.

It means the former England international will go into a record-breaking 20th season of playing Super League.

“He’s outstanding as a player, he’s outstanding as a person,” said Woolf.

“Just the way he carries himself, the way he competes every week and what he gets out of himself.

“His games are never too far apart from each other and they’re all excellent, so it’s great news for the club.

“I think it’s the right decision for him and everyone certainly looks forward to being able to work with him again.

“At the same time, we’re not worried about next year right at the minute. We’ve got to get through a couple of games and put ourselves in a good position for the business end of the year.”

He also spoke about how he learned from Roby that he wanted to carry on for another year.

“At the end of last year and early part of this year he was certainly thinking that this year would be his last and everyone was gearing up for that,” said Woolf.

“A couple of months ago he asked for a chat and said he’d changed his mind and he’d changed his mind on the back of the fact he’s still playing good footy, his body is still feeling good and in my opinion is still the best No9 in the competition. So once he said that was what he was thinking I certainly supported that and so did everyone else at the club.”