"What this club has taught a lot of other clubs is that they’ve supported their coach and gave time for the coach to build a roster to coach it," Stuart said. Gyngell, whose wife Leila McKinnon sits on the Ricky Stuart Foundation board, believes very few people know the man behind the coach. “He was never an Eel. Sticky is one of the best.”. "He always said he was a born coach. “After a while you almost wait for the phone call from him asking ‘why the f--- Canberra didn’t get enough free-to-air games’.”. ", Michael Chammas is a sports reporter with The Sydney Morning Herald, Two ex-footballers, an agent and a billionaire walk into a Chinese restaurant: How Stuart joined the 400 club. Complete list of coaches in the season. A 34-year-old Ricky Stuart, together with celebrity agent John Fordham, joined Roosters supremo Nick Politis and his coaching director Phil Gould for a celebratory dinner at a swanky Chinese restaurant overlooking Sydney harbour. List of NSWRL/ARL/SL/NRL premiership captains and coaches, Gold Coast-Tweed Giants / Gold Coast Seagulls / Gold Coast Chargers, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_current_NRL_coaches&oldid=972668738, Short description is different from Wikidata, All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 13 August 2020, at 08:06. The late Don Furner Senior's favourite quote about Stuart is that "he's been coaching since the under sevens". It didn’t take Ricky long to return the faith, leading the Roosters to their first premiership in 27 years in his debut season at the club, building the foundations that would set the Roosters on a path to reach seven grand finals in the next 18 years. I wouldn’t talk to the club until they had spoken to Dave. Graham didn't drop as many games as others with an ACL tear because it happened towards the end of last year – most of the nine months rehab was over the off-season. Well Wade Graham (222), aged 28, and Kevin Proctor (233), aged 30, are on the list Middleton compiled of players that could reach 400. “Competitive in every single thing that he does. I would have preferred not to coach the Raiders than have it hanging over my head that I was behind the sacking of Dave Furner.". Gould and Stuart. That one hurt Ricky.". But he’s a quality human being who has made the world a better place. "If you don’t respect Ricky Stuart’s grit and determination, you’ve got rocks in your head," Gyngell said. From the top 20 on the list of 300-gamers more than a third made it in 16 years. "One of the hardest parts was recruiting the senior talent that you knew you could win with. In just 12 months they had become the game’s most dynamic duo. He is 29 games ahead of where Smith was when he turned 29 in June 2012. “He drove everyone mad, but it worked with me. But the scars of what Bennett did to Stuart in 2006 still cut deep, and it influenced the events that would take place in the coming weeks. Cameron Smith may only have a short reign out on his own as the man who has played the most first-grade games. It’s obviously very, very important to us, but there’s a few other things that are important in our lives as well. “He [Stuart] would just ring and abuse me,” Gyngell said. You see that with his daughter. The number of players being able to play every club game in a NRL season is steadily climbing as well. 'It's not hard to be nice': Croker nominated for Ken Stephen Medal, JT crowned best headgear hero of the modern era, Pearce says finals hype not doing the Knights' heads in, O'Brien wants honesty session with his players, You have skipped the navigation, tab for page content. Fifteen years after his last grand final appearance, Stuart last year guided the Raiders within an inch of the club's fourth premiership. Stuart was heavily criticised by the Storm, including by then chief executive Brian Waldron, who described the comments as a "disgrace and blight on the game". “Nick showed a lot of courage to sign a very young coach at such a big club,” Stuart says. At the end of 2001, at the recommendation of Gould, the Roosters took a chance on a first year coach whose only achievement up until that point was a Jersey Flegg premiership with the Bulldogs. But I was so young and oblivious that I didn’t really take it in that Gus wasn’t around as much anymore.”, Ricky Stuart with Phil Gould at the Roosters in 2002.Credit:Steve Christo. Croker will turn 29 the first finals week in September. For Cronk, was there any temptation to push for one more year, considering he's on track to finish 2019 just 27 games short of 400?