Sunday Sesh: Beau Ryan given blessing by Kyle and Jackie O after secret meeting
Friends, then enemies. Former NRL star Beau Ryan secretly met up with Kyle Sandilands in Rooty Hill before taking on a prominent breakfast radio role with Triple M.
NRL
Don't miss out on the headlines from NRL. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Beau Ryan has revealed how he made the trip to Rooty Hill a couple of weeks ago for lunch with Kyle Sandilands and his business manager Bruno Bouchet.
Ryan, the former Wests Tigers and Cronulla star who is about to go head-to-head with Sandilands in the breakfast radio wars, wanted to give Sandilands a heads-up about his impending move to Triple M breakfast.
Sandilands has since revealed that he gave Ryan his blessing, although Ryan conceded to Sunday Sesh that there was a nervous moment in the meeting when he wasn’t sure how his good mate was going to react.
“I said to him, ‘I have this good opportunity to do Triple M’,” Ryan recalled.
“He said, ‘What, breakfast?’
“I said, ‘Breakfast’. He just looked at me and paused a bit.”
Ryan held his breath.
He waited to see what the response would be once Sandilands digested the news that the pair would be rivals. He needn’t have worried. Sandilands was all good.
“He said, ‘It’s great. I’m happy for you, that’s going to be good for you’,” Ryan said.
“I said, ‘What’s the go?’
“He said, ‘It’s good’. I said, ‘I’ll speak to Jacks (Jackie ‘O’ Henderson) as well’.
“He said, ‘That’s approval for both of us’.
”I said, ‘That suits me’.”
Ryan walked away from the lunch relieved but no doubt also relishing the opportunity to lock horns with his good mate, who also happens to be a giant of the radio game.
Ryan, who will host breakfast alongside former Tigers teammate Aaron Woods and journalist Natarsha Belling, is no stranger to a scrap.
He spent eight years in the NRL with the Tigers and Sharks, playing more than 120 games before turning his hand to television.
Radio now looms large on his horizon as he dives straight into the battle for breakfast ratings, which are as brutal and ruthless as any stoush he had on the rugby league field.
The new team will no doubt lean on their rugby league expertise and gravitas to reel in listeners given NRL is the sport of choice for Sydneysiders.
They start on January 20.
Saint, Sinner, Shoosh: Knights secure ex-ref as head of football
A former NRL referee has joined Newcastle as the club’s head of football operations, while the dispute between the two warring factions of the Wests Tigers owners shows no signs of letting up. That and more in Saint, Sinner, Shoosh.
Save Selwyn: Madge makes crucial play to ignite wayward Bronco
Michael Maguire has launched ‘Operation Save Selwyn’ at the Broncos by making a bold move in an attempt to restore the Queensland Origin star to his best form.