One of the greatest coaches and a former player, Ricky Stuart has played for the Canberra Raiders, Canterbury Bulldogs, NSW Coach, New South Wales, NSW Country and Australian Kangaroos. He currently serves as a head coach for the Canberra Raiders in the NRL. He had previously been coach of the Australian national rugby league team and National Rugby League clubs and the Sydney Roosters.
Stuart was born as Ricky John Stuart on January 7, 1967, in Queanbeyan, New South Wales. Stuart belongs to white ethnicity and holds an Australian nationality. He started playing rugby league at his tender age, but he possessed his career while he was at St Edmund’s College. He was the member of his college team that won third place in the Australian Schoolboys Championships.
Stuart is the brand ambassador for his own foundation and his foundation raised a record $40,000 in 2017. In 2014, he is reported to earn $800,000 as a yearly salary, however, he hasn’t revealed his exact salary and net worth. In 1988, he took his first step in the field of rugby thus, till this date, he has collected a good sum of money.
After his graduation, Stuart joined the Queanbeyan Whites before joining Canberra Raiders. He then switched with "Canberra Raiders "in 1988. In his first season, he was honored with the player of the year award that.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he became the key player of the team for his position as halfback inside a backline including players Gary Belcher, Mal Meninga and Laurie Daley. For the team, he has played 203 matches where he made 195 points, 39 tries, 7 goals and 25 field goals.
He later joined the Canterbury Bulldogs in 1999 for a year. He made 10 points from 40 games and 2 tries before ending his career in the club.
Stuart was drafted for the Australian national rugby union team of Argentina in 1987. For the team, he played 3 tour games as both Scrum-half and Fly-half position. He then selected for the 1989 World Cup Challenge and traveled to England but the team was lost against “Widnes”.
Stuart then honored with Clive Churchill Medal in 1990. At the same year, he made his debut match in the 1990 Kangaroo tour against Great Britain national rugby league team in October of 1990, London replacing Allan Langer.
In both 1992 and 1993 season, Stuart won Raiders’ Player of the year and received Dally M Medal in 1993 for the player of the year in the Winfield Cup. Moreover, he has played 1 game for NSW City and 14 games for New South Wales State rugby league team.
In 2002, Stuart started his coaching career taking with Sydney Roosters. In his first year, he took the “Roosters” to the 2003 NRL final. His team won 79 games, lost 50 games, and 1 draw until 2006.
Stuart signed a two-year contract with the “Cronulla Sharks” in 2007 taking over from Stuart Raper as the head coach in 2007. He later extended his contract with the team until the end of 2011 season.
On May of 2010, Stuart officially revealed that he would be resigned at end of the 2010 season. Later, he left the team after three years in 2010. He then signed a three-year deal with Parramatta Eels in 2013. Later, his team lost with 50-0 against his former club, Roosters. He was punished with $10,000 after an illicit act to referee in a loss to the Gold Coast.
In 2014, Stuart joined the Canberra Raiders for a three-year deal. So far, he is the coach of the team that won 171 matches and 176 loss.
Stuart has represented his national side, "Country New South Wales rugby league team", and "Australia kangaroos" as the head coach. In 2004, he made his international coaching debut with the NSW County.
Stuart was later selected as the coach for the New South Wales in 2005. He was then named as the coach of the Australian Kangaroos in 2005 replacing Wayne Bennett. While he was a coach, the team won the Anzac Tests (2006, 007) as well as 2006 Tri-Nations. Later, the team won against New Zealand, one-off test. In 2016, he has been honored with Dally M Award Best Coach.
While Stuart was a Coach of the Australian team that lost in the 2008 Rugby League World Cup final against New Zealand by 34-20. He then verbally aggressive with the Chief Executive of Australian Rugby League and his friend, Geoff Carr, state that, alleging a conspiracy by tournament organizers. He had met with the match referee Ashley Klein, Stuart Cummings. However, it is not cleared about the match-fixing.
Stuart is married to his beautiful wife, Kaylie Stuart. They together have three children Emma born on 1998 (suffer from autistic), Jed and Jack.
They have set up the Ricky Stuart Foundation to raise awareness and funds for autism. Through their personal journey, they created an idea for this foundation and the aim of the organization is to support for autistic people from a lot of funds. Moreover, her daughter has not spoken anything since her born except a low “hum”.
