Dean Ryan (born 22 June 1966) is an English

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

coach and former player. A former

corporal Corporal is a military rank in use by the armed forces of many countries. It is also a police rank in some police services. The rank is usually the lowest ranking non-commissioned officer. In some militaries, the rank of corporal nominally corr ...

in the Corp of Royal Engineers, he played for

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

as a Number 8. Since summer 2019 he has been head coach at the Welsh regional side, the

Dragons A dragon is a magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in Western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depict ...

, and was previously head coach or Director of Rugby at

Guinness Premiership Premiership Rugby, officially known as Gallagher Premiership Rugby, or the Gallagher Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is an English professional rugby union competition, consisting of 10 clubs, and is the top division of the English rugby u ...

sides

Gloucester Rugby Gloucester Rugby are a professional rugby union club based in the West Country city of Gloucester, England. They play in Premiership Rugby, England's top division of rugby. The club was formed in 1873 and since 1891 has played its home matches ...

and

Worcester Warriors Worcester Warriors are a professional rugby union club based in Worcester, England. They most recently played in Premiership Rugby, the top division of English rugby union, before being suspended by the Rugby Football Union, RFU in September 2 ...

Playing career

During his on-field career Ryan played for

Saracens file:Erhard Reuwich Sarazenen 1486.png, upright 1.5, Late 15th-century History of Germany, German woodcut depicting Saracens ''Saracen'' ( ) was a term used both in Greek language, Greek and Latin writings between the 5th and 15th centuries to ...

Wasps A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England, United Kingdom *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area ...

and

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

. Regarded as one of the most competitive and robust forwards of his generation he saw league success twice during his career with Wasps (96–97), and captained Newcastle to league success on the first attempt during the 97–98 season, making 21 appearances. He was awarded six England caps during his career with his International debut against Argentina in 1990.

Coaching career

Ryan moved to coaching Bristol taking the reins at the club for the beginning of the 2000–01 season. In his first season Bristol finished 9th. He took the club to the Zurich Championship Final in 2002, where they lost to Gloucester Rugby, having finished 8th. Ryan moved to Gloucester Rugby after this as assistant head coach under

Nigel Melville Nigel David Melville (born 6 January 1961) is a former England national rugby union team scrum half and captain and currently serves as Director of Professional Rugby for the Rugby Football Union. Melville became the youngest player to captain ...

. Following Melville's departure from Gloucester Rugby in 2005 Ryan was appointed to the head coach role, which he held through the 2008–09 season. During his time at Gloucester Rugby, Ryan assembled a team featuring a number of highly talented youngster and has put together a back-line considered by many to be one of the most exciting in English club rugby. Following the dismissal of

Andy Robinson Richard Andrew Robinson Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 3 April 1964) is an English rugby union coach and retired player. He was the director of rugby at Bristol Bears, Bristol until November 2016. He is the former head coach of Scotland ...

as England head coach in 2006, Dean Ryan was amongst the favourites to be his successor. However, Ryan stated that he was committed to his role at Gloucester Rugby and had not considered leaving as he believed that he had not yet finished his work at the club. Under Ryan's guidance Gloucester Rugby enjoyed three successful seasons. In his first two-season they finished 5th and 1st in the table and began the 2007–08 campaign as favourites, which ultimately they failed to live up to. Despite finishing 1st again they lost at home to Leicester in the play-off semi final. The following season they finished 6th. Despite winning the 2006 European Challenge Cup, defeating London Irish in a tense final, Ryan failed to deliver the anticipated silverware at Gloucester, losing the 2007 Guinness Premiership final and the 2009 EDF Energy Cup final. A few Gloucester fans credit this lack of success to poor tactics; others, however, attribute the lack of success to disruptive influences. On 11 June 2009, Gloucester announced that Ryan had left the club by mutual consent. In July 2012 Ryan returned to Bristol in a part-time consultancy role and in December 2012 he took on the role of rugby consultant for Newport Gwent Dragons, spending a day a week with each team. In January 2013 Ryan joined interim Scotland coach Scott Johnson as forward coach until the end of the 2013 Six Nations, where they finished third. On 17 April 2013, Dean Ryan was appointed director of rugby at

, replacing Richard Hill. Ryan couldn't keep the Warriors in the league in his first season in charge and the club was once again relegated to England's second tier. However, after releasing a number of older players the club began a rebuilding phase led by Ryan who recruited young talents unable to get game-time at big clubs. Warriors achieved promotion back to the Premiership at their first attempt, beating Bristol in the playoffs thanks to a last minute Chris Pennell try and Ryan Lamb conversion. The club also managed to win the B&I Cup defeating Doncaster 35–5. Warriors' first season back in the Aviva Premiership during the 2015/16 campaign was a successful one. The club made a number of high-profile signings in Francois Hougaard, Donncha O'Callaghan and Wynand Olivier and finished the season in 10th position. He decided to leave Worcester on 30 June 2016. In August 2016 he joined the

Rugby Football Union The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the Sports governing body, national governing body for rugby union in England. It was founded in 1871, and was the sport's international governing body prior to the formation of what is now known as World Rugby ...

(RFU) as England's Head of International Player Development. His remit included working closely with academies and national-team coaches to share best practice and consistency from the Under 16 age group going through to the senior team. He also oversaw the development of elite coaches, including national-team coaches, and the identification of potential future international coaches. He left the RFU post in the summer of 2019 to take up the role of Director of Rugby with

along with a position on the Dragons' board.

Other

Since 2012 he has been a regular rugby analyst for

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British broadcasting of sports events, subscription sports channels operated by the satellite television, satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television ...

. On 30 May 2014 Dean coached the Barbarians to a 39–29 victory over an inexperienced England side.

References

External links

Wasps profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ryan, Dean 1966 births Living people English rugby union players English rugby union coaches England international rugby union players People educated at Queen's College, Taunton Rugby union players from Nottinghamshire Newcastle Falcons players Saracens F.C. players Wasps RFC players Bristol Bears players Rugby union number eights 20th-century English sportsmen