Just twelve months on from his professional debut, Harry Robertson has secured a regular spot in the St Helens team and been named in the England train-on squad.
IT’S half an hour into a brutal affair at the Totally Wicked Stadium. St Helens lead by four, no tries yet scored, and the stifling June heat is the only winner.
Tristan Sailor looks to finally make something happen down the left. He does, but not as intended, his pass finding the wrong winger, not Owen Dagnall but Leeds’ Ryan Hall.
Super League’s all-time leading try-scorer gallops away and the 70-metre dash looks a formality. Back chase Dagnall and Sailor, so too Daryl Clark and – impressively – George Delaney. But with Hall’s head start, none will catch him.
Except, the moment Hall steals possession, a strapping figure begins pursuit from the opposite side of the field. Head up, eyes for the far corner, full speed ahead. In the final ten metres Hall is brought down, held out, rolled over and then – with the help of all those other chasers – dragged into touch.
One by one each team-mate gives hearty thanks and congratulations to Harry Robertson, the 19-year-old who has fast become not just a St Helens star of the present but an England star of the future too.
That’s because a keen observer of the match – which Saints went on to win 18-4 – was national team coach Shaun Wane. Little over a week later, Robertson was the youngest and most eye-catching name in a 32-man England train-on squad, selected with an eye on a high-profile home Ashes series this autumn.
With no little understatement, he says: “I didn’t expect to get as many games as I have (this season) so to be put in the England training squad was a bit of a surprise.”
After all, the call-up came less than twelve months on from his professional debut.
It was only last July that Robertson burst onto the scene with a stellar performance at full-back in a narrow derby defeat at rivals Wigan, perhaps the toughest fixture of all to make your bow.
It was the first of nine successive appearances with coach Paul Wellens down on troops. When they returned, he missed the very end of the run-in as Saints lost in the first round of the play-offs.
But a seed had been sown in the mind of Wellens, that this was a talent who needed to play – even if Robertson didn’t know it ahead of his first pre-season with the senior squad.
“I thought I would just be an 18th man, filling in the squad when someone gets injured. You’re going to have injuries throughout the season so I thought I might have filled in for a block of games and then be out again,” he says.
“I didn’t expect to be a regular in the team. Once I did start to become a regular, I wanted to keep that. I don’t want it taken away from me so I’m focusing on that.”
He’s played every game when fit, totalling 15 appearances at the time of writing (after another victory over Leeds, this time at Headingley, moved St Helens into the top four after 18 rounds).
Key has been switching to a new position, with all of his action coming in the previously unknown role of centre. Though a running spine player at heart, his height (six foot three), speed and sharpness make him a powerful weapon on the edge too, while he combines determined defensive work with an eye for the tryline, scoring ten times so far this season.
“It was a bit of a change at the start,” says Robertson. “I’m a full-back or a six by trade, but I spent the full pre-season at centre and started to quite enjoy it.
“It’s not too bad. I still prefer six or fullback but I think I’m doing alright. I like the defensive side of things.
“I’m quite realistic. I know we’ve got Jack (Welsby) and Tristan who can both play fullback and six. Tristan is probably one of the in-form players in the competition and obviously Jack is Jack! I knew where I was most likely to get in and that was centre.”
Welsby found himself in a very similar predicament at the beginning of his own career. He played at centre for much of Saints’ title-winning campaigns of 2020 and 2021, then at stand-off in 2022’s ‘four-peat’.
That he earned a place in the Super League Dream Team in both positions, before doing the same at fullback in 2023, emphasises what an all-round, skilful rugby player Welsby is. While it’s still early days, it’s not unreasonable to start making similar judgements of Robertson.
And the teen reveals: “He (Welsby) had a conversation with me, saying ‘bide your time’. He said it’s tough at first but it’s not been that tough for me, I enjoy it. Whatever position it is, any experience is experience.”
Welsby has tasted great success but time waits for no club and the generation that led their four successive title wins recedes with each passing year.
Since world glory at the start of 2023, St Helens have finished third and sixth in Super League, while a recent upturn in form doesn’t disguise the fact they are behind the benchmark currently being set by back-to-back champions Wigan and Challenge Cup winners Hull KR.
But there is reason for hope in the next generation coming out of their illustrious academy. Alongside Robertson, this year has seen the emergence of fellow 19-year-olds Dagnall – a powerful, athletic wideman and a prolific finisher – and George Whitby, the halfback with a wand of a right foot who kept club legend Jonny Lomax out of the team for some time.
The trio all went full-time with Saints last summer and signed four-year deals at the start of this season, and very much look like the future.
Robertson says: “In my first year of academy there was me, Owen and George, then players like Dayon Sambou, Alfie Sinclair, Noah Stephens, Jonny Vaughan, Ciaran Nolan, Will Roberts, Jake Davies, Cole Marsh. It’s nice coming through with all of them. We’re a pretty strong group of mates.
“I’ve played with Owen since I was about eleven, he played for Halton Farnworth Hornets as well. It’s great to see him get his chance and take it. I always knew how good a player he was but for him to showcase that on the big stage is really nice. And George is a special talent as well.”
Whitby was a budding footballer, spending five years in Burnley’s youth system, and that was initially where Robertson’s interest lay as well, despite growing up in Widnes.
“I was a big footy kid. I played football, my dad played football, my brother played football. No one really knew what rugby league was in my family, but my mates in school were playing it,” he explains.
“When I came home and said I wanted to play rugby they were a bit surprised at first, but I got into it and turned out to be quite good at it. I’ve always just been quite fast and quite tall, so when you’re young you can just run round the outside.
“I do love it, I love rugby. It’s the best job I think you can have.”
If his first year doing it at the highest level is anything to go by, it’s a job he’ll be doing very well for a very long time.
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 511 (August 2025)