To be a resident of Rickyland you need to pick and stick
The Canberra coach admits to being a volatile - “but it’s a volatile game”.
By Roy Masters
Ricky StuartCredit: Fairfax/Jamie Brown
Ricky Stuart, coach of NRL ladder leaders, Canberra, doesn’t so much win games as avenge wrongs, overcome adversity and triumph over entrenched injustice. While siege mentality is embedded in his DNA, there is some justification for his conviction his club is perpetually under attack.
The brand, Raiders, is a misnomer. They are the raided. I spoke to Stuart the day he learned his recruitment officer, Joel Carbone, had been poached by the Sydney Roosters. Carbone has been publicly lauded by Stuart for the recruitment of highly talented five-eighth Ethan Strange and a couple of other promising players yet to play NRL.
“It’s so hard losing players,” Stuart says, admitting that after local junior Jack Wighton announced his exit in April 2023, he vowed to resign at the end of that season if Canberra failed to make the semis. The club came eighth.
Jack Wighton jumped from Canberra to the Rabbitohs’ carrot.Credit: John Shakespeare
“It wears you down losing players you’ve developed and staff you’ve promoted,” he said. “We are a successful club off the field but we don’t have billionaires. We are the raided, as you say.”
His nickname is Sticky, a derivative of the reversal, by a house mate, of the first letter of his names: Sticky Ruart.
“It’s stupid but it stuck,” he says.
It’s also accidental nominative determinism because Stuart is a charter member of the pick and stick club.
Rickyland is his domain. He staked out its borders long ago: a narrow ridge of volcanic land with outsiders either side. It’s a place where you trust almost no-one from outside the territory but like to be seen as completely trustworthy yourself.
It’s a region where he proclaims no-one’s dignity is at risk but foolish errors are punished for only the fool’s eyes to see.
“I’ve always been a guy to coach for his players and there have been a number of times where I’ve had to stick by the player but let the player know he’s done the wrong thing privately,” he says, conjuring up images of a guilty player standing in front of Stuart, as children do when telling their father they have wrecked the family car.
“Publicly, I protect him, put my arm around him but privately I tell him what was wrong. I’ve always wanted to be that type of coach.”
So, if an outsider, such as a journalist, challenges one of his players, you measure Ricky’s blast in megatonnes.
For example, when Stuart coached the Roosters to the 2004 grand final and I questioned the effort level of winger Chris Walker ahead of the game, he went on TV suggesting I should address my own “personal problems.” After a careful self-examination of my possible private demons, I did cut back on the schooners. But only that particular evening.
Ricky Stuart and Chris Walker face the media in 2003.Credit: Getty Images AsiaPac
And it wasn’t long before I was invited onto Rickyland to join his NSW team in the Origin series in 2005. There are those permanently banished from Rickyland, such as Penrith’s Jaeman Salmon whom he called a “weak-gutted dog” and was fined by the NRL.
Nick Politis was his chairman when Stuart coached the Roosters to the 2002 title at age 35. Politis’s support extended to paying his fines for criticism of referees.
Former NRL chief executive David Gallop recalls, “I fined Ricky and a cheque landed on my desk the following day, a personal one signed by N. G. Politis, who clearly approved of his comments.”
However, Ricky’s comment above about “billionaires” suggests Politis is no longer a paid up member of Rickyland, with the poaching of Carbone affirming this.
When Stuart was the Bulldogs’ waterboy while recovering from a knee injury, he refused to give one senior forward a drink. “I don’t remember those days,” he says with a knowing chuckle. “I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve said. I know I’m volatile but it’s a volatile game. I stick up for what I think is right.”
The TV cameras have a close view of Stuart on game day because he is the only NRL coach who positions himself on the sideline.
When I raised the possibility of his gaining a tactical advantage insofar as his volcanic presence intimidated referees and touch judges, a prolonged pause suggested I was about to be banished from Rickyland.
“That’s a load of shit,” he finally said. “Laughable.” But a Storm player claims he copped a Ricky barb within the hearing of the referee and touch judge in the emotion-charged final Magic Round match in Brisbane when the Storm took a seven-point lead late in the game, only for the referee to sight a Melbourne breach in a tackle and cancel the field goal.
Ricky Stuart celebrates with Brad Fittler after winning a title in 2002.Credit: Craig Golding
Later in our interview, Ricky returns to the sideline question, saying, “I hate the cameras on the sideline but it’s where I feel I coach the best. My three coaches – Tim [Sheens], Bozo [Bob Fulton] and Gus [Gould] – all coached from the sideline. I get the feeling of what the players are going through. I can’t get that in a sterile coach’s box.
“I like to see the energy and emotion of the player when he comes on and off the field. I like that feel between a coach desperate to win and his players
wanting the same.”
He swallows losses as if they were castor oil and would rather chew on balls of alfoil than praise a rival coach he does not like. When a delegation of his players tactfully pointed out Ricky’s negativity following a loss risked becoming contagious, particularly with NRL short turnarounds, he volunteered to disappear.
“I had to have a good look at myself,” he said. “I didn’t want to have a beer with my mates and sour the company. So I distanced myself.”
He is an old-school coach, in this respect. Studying the demeanour of many mentors post match, it’s difficult to know whether their team won, or lost.
Again Stuart makes no apology for how he feels, pointing out that being comfortable after a loss will guarantee more losses. “Being sour after losing, is not something I practise,” he says, perhaps tired of having to shadow box his reputation.
Stuart has a beer with former Raider teammate and now-Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy after games between their two clubs. He even has a photo on his desk of the pair looking very inebriated in their playing days.
But when the Raiders were challenging the Storm for semi-final places 2018-19, Melbourne assistants pointed to stories in a Sydney newspaper highlighting illegal wrestling tactics at Bellamy’s club.
Was this Stuart’s super competitiveness in seeding stories, as many top coaches such as Jack Gibson and Fulton, did? Or a journalist seeking to ingratiate himself with the Canberra coach? Still a loyal teammate Bellamy isolated himself from the discussion.
Ricky Stuart when he took the job as Roosters coach in 2002.Credit: Tim Clayton
The question of the salary cap and its enforcement draws a spirited response. It’s akin to boxer Bernard Hopkins who said after a controversial loss, “I’m not going to say I was robbed but has anyone seen my wallet?”
Ricky says, “I won’t comment on the record, except to say we are always on the back foot trying to compete against the big clubs who have the [State of] Origin players.”
There have been no significant punishments of NRL clubs since Melbourne was punished 15 years ago for the past (stripped of two premierships), the present (could not compete for points in 2010) and the future (forced to shed players).
However, Stuart’s security at the Raiders where he was a triple premiership player, together with the club’s solid financial base, means he is not imprisoned by the salary cap.
“A lot of coaches don’t have the same confidence in management that I have,” he says. “They buy players to win this year, while I get them to build for the future. The Raiders board have shown great faith in me and that gives me confidence.”
Canberra’s group of young, spirited players is drawing a big following. “We are pursuing a strategy of identifying young talent and developing our own. The only marquee genuine player the Raiders have ever bought is Mal (Meninga).”
It therefore hurts more when locally produced talent is poached, particularly with Canberra being a geographical bulwark against the heavily-resourced AFL.
One of those locals is his own son, Jed, who debuted in round 16, scoring a try. Jed was aged around seven when Ricky coached at the Sharks. It was a particularly difficult time for sister Emma who was diagnosed with autism.
Danny Robinson, then the general manager of the St George Leagues Club and the Stuart’s neighbour, recalls Emma’s refusal to go to school, with Ricky forced to sit in the back seat of the car and restrain her, while wife Kaylie drove.
Ricky Stuart with his daughter Emma at a NSW training session in 2005.Credit: Tim Clayton
Robinson alerted the parents to the great work of Giant Steps, a special education school in Gladesville. “It saved our family,” Stuart said. “The two boys [Jed and brother Jackson] were missing out on everything, like going to afternoon sport training. And coaching, as you know, is a 24-hour-a-day job.
“At the back end of my time coaching at Parramatta and Origin, the burden went to other families to take the boys to training.”
When Jed debuted, he had Emma written on one wristband and Ruby (her middle name) on the other wrist. “I didn’t know he did it till after,” says Ricky.
Emma, now 27, is secure in independent living style accommodation, with the Ricky Stuart Foundation having raised funds, via annual golf days at Royal Canberra and celebrity lunches in Sydney, to build two respite centres for autism affected children. With attendances of over 500 per function and the following of the Raiders increasing, Rickyland is growing in population.
Some people count to 10 before they blow up. The early Ricky couldn’t get past one but with the Raiders leading the NRL and having two byes and only one opponent in the top eight over the next nine weeks, Ricky is now midrange on his Richter scale.
Aged 58, he admits, “I am mellowing. I’m not as aggressive as before. Having kids (and the No.1 team) mellows you.”