Warren Ryan

Coaching Career

Vital Statistics

Born
Monday, 27th October, 1941
Current Age
82 years and 144 days

Awards & Accolades

Dally M Coach Of The Year
1991

Biography

1962 Commonwealth Games shot put rep was a lock forward in St George's reserve grade grand final win in 1965. Ryan captained Cronulla in 1968 before moving to the I’warra competition, playing for Wollongong Wests from 1969-73 (the last two as captain-coach). He captained Country in 1972 and after coaching Collegians in 1974, he joined Wests U’23s before becoming one of the top coaches of the modern era. Ryan took over as coach of Newtown in 1979 and within three years had taken the club from the bottom of the competition to the grand final. With the Newtown club unable to be competitive on and off the field after the heady days of 1981, he was courted by C’bury in 1984. Ryan helped turn the Bulldogs into a relentless football machine, winning premierships in 1984-85 before being narrowly beaten in 1986. Ever professional, outwardly abrasive and not one to suffer fools, Ryan fought factions within the club for four years before resigning in 1987. At Balmain, he took the Tigers to consecutive grand finals in 1988-89 but drew criticism for his replacement of key players in the 1989 grand final loss against Canberra when the game was at a vital stage. At Wests in the early 1990s, Ryan was able to recruit a solid core of players from C’bury, taking the Magpies to fourth position in the 1991 season. A belated winner of the 'Dally M' Coach of the Year in 1991, things turned sour after Wests' second straight semi-final appearance in 1992. The advent of the 10 metre rule in 1994 made Ryan's defence-orientated style of coaching somewhat redundant and with the club struggling to retain its players and failing to attract corporate sponsorship, the Wests' coach resigned. Ryan has always maintained that he coached to the strengths of his players and his record of 2 wins from 6 grand finals may be a fair measure of the success of that policy. After an absence of five years, during which he developed a media career on ABC Radio, he was a surprise choice as successor to Mal Reilly as Newcastle coach in 1999. Never far from controversy in his two seasons with the Knights, ‘The Wok’ battled the club’s ‘Johns Brothers’ power block, faced a player revolt in early 2000 and even re-ignited his feud with former Wests’ coach and SMH journalist Roy Masters. Retiring after Newcastle’s controversial loss in the 2000 qualifying final against the Roosters, Ryan surpassed Bob Fulton’s first grade coaching record as the most experienced coach in the history of the game (since bettered by Tim Sheens in 2001).
- ALAN WHITICKER

Coaching Career Statistics

All statistics shown in this section are based only on data available in the RLP database, and are not necessarily a complete and/or 100% accurate representation of a player's career. This information should be used as a guide only. If you see a question mark (?), it denotes that the figure is not available.

To view a list of corresponding matches, click on the List button.

Competitions

Competition   Games W L D Win %  
NRL 415 233 167 15 56.14% List
National Panasonic Cup 10 6 4 0 60.00% List
NRL Finals 27 15 12 0 55.56% List
City vs Country 5 0 5 0 0.00% List
Tooheys Challenge Cup 1 0 1 0 0.00% List


Representative

Australia - By Team

Team Years Games W L D Win %  
NSW Country 1987-91 5 0 5 0 0.00% List


Club Career

NRL/NSWRL - By Year

Team Season Games W L D Win %  
Newtown NSWRFL 1979 22 6 16 0 27.27% List
Newtown NSWRFL 1980 22 11 10 1 50.00% List
Newtown NSWRFL 1981 26 16 8 2 61.54% List
Newtown NSWRFL 1982 26 13 11 2 50.00% List
Canterbury NSWRL 1984 26 21 5 0 80.77% List
Canterbury NSWRL 1985 28 19 7 2 67.86% List
Canterbury NSWRL 1986 28 17 10 1 60.71% List
Canterbury NSWRL 1987 24 13 11 0 54.17% List
Balmain NSWRL 1988 27 19 8 0 70.37% List
Balmain NSWRL 1989 25 16 8 1 64.00% List
Balmain NSWRL 1990 24 15 9 0 62.50% List
Western Suburbs NSWRL 1991 24 14 9 1 58.33% List
Western Suburbs NSWRL 1992 23 12 10 1 52.17% List
Western Suburbs NSWRL 1993 22 7 15 0 31.82% List
Western Suburbs NSWRL 1994 15 4 9 2 26.67% List
Newcastle NRL 1999 25 14 10 1 56.00% List
Newcastle NRL 2000 28 16 11 1 57.14% List

NRL/NSWRL - By Team

Team Years Games W L D Win %  
Newtown 1979-82 96 46 45 5 47.92% List
Canterbury 1984-87 106 70 33 3 66.04% List
Balmain 1988-90 76 50 25 1 65.79% List
Western Suburbs 1991-94 84 37 43 4 44.05% List
Newcastle 1999-00 53 30 21 2 56.60% List
Overall1979-2000 415 233 167 15 56.14% List

Your Say

  • Paul Carter
    25/03/2010

    Ryan represented Australia in shotput at the 1962 Commonwealth Games in Perth (when it was called the Empire games) and finished seventh.

  • Leann Andrews
    12/12/2018

    We would like to contact Warren as Wests Illawarra are having their 70 Reunion.
    Can you help?

  • Anonymous
    16/02/2022

    Very Competitive person

  • Len chinnery
    16/02/2022

    Very Competitive person Competed against him in 1960-62 in Shot Put and Discus in Sydney

  • Want to have your say about this player? Add a comment.

Contributions: Rugby League Tables, Greg Fiveash, Andrew Ferguson, Michael Borg, Shawn Dollin, Alan Katzmann, Paul Carter