Matthew John Ryan (born 13 January 1967) is an Australian former professional

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 ...

player. Born in Sydney, Ryan attended

Waverley College Waverley College is a dual-campus independent Catholic early learning, primary and secondary day school for boys, located on Birrell and Henrietta Street in Waverley, in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, Australia. The school was founded by the C ...

up until the ninth grade, when he moved to

St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill St Joseph's College (abbreviated as SJC and commonly called ''Joeys'') is an independent Catholic secondary day and boarding school for boys, conducted in the Marist Brothers tradition, located in Hunters Hill, a suburb on the Lower North Sh ...

, from where he won Australian Schools representative honours in 1985. Ryan was a front rower and began in first-grade with West Harbour, before switching states in 1989 to play at Brisbane club Brothers. He earned Queensland selection in 1990 for a tour of Fiji. Between 1990 and 1992, Ryan made three overseas

Wallabies A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and som ...

tours without winning a cap. He was unused off the bench in the 1st Test against France at the Sydney Football Stadium in 1990, then missed the remainder of the series with a facial viral infection, after which he won selection for that year's tour of New Zealand. His first Wallabies appearance came in a tour match against

Waikato The Waikato () is a region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato District, Waipā District, Matamata-Piako District, South Waikato District and Hamilton City, as well as Hauraki, Coromandel Peninsula, the nort ...

and he sat on the bench as a reserve for all three Tests. He didn't feature in any Wallabies sides during the World Cup year due to an inflamed disc, then returned in 1992 to make the tour of South Africa, followed by a tour Wales and Ireland. During the Ireland tour, Ryan scored Australia's only try in a narrow win over

Connacht Connacht or Connaught ( ; or ), is the smallest of the four provinces of Ireland, situated in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms (Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, C ...

. Ryan was a member of the

Queensland Reds The Queensland Reds is the rugby union team based in Brisbane for the Australian state of Queensland that competes in the Southern Hemisphere's Super Rugby competition. Prior to 1996, they were a representative team selected from the rugby union ...

side that won the 1995

Super 10 The Super 10 was a rugby union football tournament featuring ten teams from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Tonga, and Western Samoa. The competition ran for three years from 1993 to 1995 and was the predecessor of Super 12 and Super 14, ...

title. He remained with the Reds for the first two seasons of the

Super 12 Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the S ...

competition and later coached Penrith in the Shute Shield.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ryan, Matt 1967 births Living people Australian rugby union players Australia international rugby union players Queensland Reds players Rugby union players from Sydney Rugby union props West Harbour RFC players Brothers Old Boys players People educated at Waverley College People educated at St Joseph's College, Hunters Hill 20th-century Australian sportsmen