Ryan Tandy (20 September 1981 – 28 April 2014) was an international

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

footballer who played in the 2000s and 2010s. He played as a in the

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

(NRL) for the St. George Illawarra Dragons,

South Sydney Rabbitohs The South Sydney District Rugby League Football Club, also known as the South Sydney Rabbitohs, is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Sydney suburb of Maroubra, New South Wales, Maroubra that competes in the Nat ...

Wests Tigers The Wests Tigers is an Australian professional rugby league football team, based in the Inner West of Sydney and South Western Sydney. The Tigers have competed in the National Rugby League (NRL) since being formed at the end of the 1999 N ...

Melbourne Storm The Melbourne Storm is a rugby league football club based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia that participates in the National Rugby League (NRL). The club plays its home games at AAMI Park, and wears a purple and navy blu ...

, and the

Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Belmore, a suburb in the Canterbury-Bankstown region of Sydney. They compete in the NRL Telstra Premiership, as well as competitions facilitated by ...

, and in the

Super League Super League (also known as the Betfred Super League for sponsorship reasons, and legally Super League Europe Ltd.) is a professional rugby league competition, and the highest level of the British rugby league system, which consists of twelve t ...

for

Hull Kingston Rovers Hull Kingston Rovers (often abbreviated to Hull KR) are a professional rugby league club based in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, England. The club play home games at Craven Park, Hull, Craven Park and compete in Super League, the top tier of B ...

. He was banned from playing professional rugby league in Australia after being found guilty of

spot-fixing Spot-fixing is an illegal activity in a sport in which a specific aspect of a game, unrelated to the final result but upon which a betting market exists, is fixed in an attempt to ensure a certain result in a proposition bet. Examples include som ...

during a match in 2010, and in 2014 died of a suspected drug overdose.

Background

Of Irish heritage, Tandy was born in

Gosford Gosford is a waterfront city at the northern end of Brisbane Water on the Central Coast in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The Gosford Waterfront is known for its boating and scenic views on the shores of Brisbane Water. Gosford is ...

, New South Wales, Australia, on 20 September 1981. He played Junior

for the Kincumber Colts on the Central Coast of

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Playing career

Tandy's career covered stints with the St. George Illawarra Dragons,

, and the

in the NRL. He also played for

in the

. In the National Leagues system he played for

Doncaster Doncaster ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, Yorkshire, River Don, it is the administrative centre of the City of Doncaster metropolitan borough, and is the second largest se ...

Widnes Vikings The Widnes Vikings are an English rugby league club in Widnes, Cheshire, which competes in the RFL Championship, Betfred Championship. The club plays home matches at DCBL Stadium. Founded as Widnes Football Club, they are one of the original twe ...

Whitehaven Whitehaven is a town and civil parish in the Cumberland (unitary authority), Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. It is a port on the north-west coast, and lies outside the Lake District National parks of England and Wales, National Park. ...

and Barrow. He was an

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

international. Tandy débuted for the

first grade team against the Brisbane Broncos in Round 15 in 2008. Tandy was selected in the

national team for the

2008 Rugby League World Cup The 2008 Rugby League World Cup was the thirteenth World Cup for men’s rugby league national teams. It was held between 26 October and 22 November and was won by New Zealand, who defeated Australia 34–20 in the final in one of the greatest ...

, which led to a contract with

for 2009. He was a member of the victorious Melbourne squad in the

2009 NRL Grand Final The 2009 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding game of the NRL's 2009 Telstra Premiership season. Played on 4 October 2009 at Sydney's ANZ Stadium was contested between the Parramatta Eels and the Melbourne Storm, the lat ...

against

Parramatta Parramatta (; ) is a suburb (Australia), suburb and major commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney. Parramatta is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district, Sydney CBD, on the banks of the Parramatta River. It is co ...

, but the premiership title was later stripped from the Storm due to salary cap breaches. The

Melbourne Storm salary cap breach The Melbourne Storm salary cap breach was a major breach of the National Rugby League's strictly enforced salary cap by the Melbourne Storm club over a period of five years. The discovery of these breaches in 2010 by the NRL resulted in it strip ...

saw him sign with the

on 12 June 2010, and was sacked by them on 18 March 2011.

Betting scandal

After the 21 August 2010 Canterbury-Bankstown match against the

North Queensland Cowboys The North Queensland Cowboys is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Townsville, the largest city in North Queensland. They compete in Australia's premier rugby league competition, the National Rugby League (NRL). Sinc ...

Tandy became embroiled in a betting scandal. The

Totalisator Agency Board The Totalisator Agency Board, universally shortened to TAB or T.A.B., is the name given to monopoly Tote board, totalisator organisations in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. They operate betting shops and Online gambling, online betting ...

(TAB) announced that 95 per cent of bets placed on the first scoring play of this match were for the unusual option of a Cowboys penalty goal. Friends and associates of Tandy placed a large number of bets, with the total windfall for a successful bet expected to be over $100,000. Tandy was then responsible for two actions in the match to allow the opposing side to score a penalty goal inside the first two minutes: first by giving away possession to the Cowboys in the opening moments of the match by knocking on, and then giving away a penalty in the play-the-ball ten metres in front of the goal posts. These actions put the Cowboys in a position where a penalty goal was a likely outcome; but they decided on an attacking option and scored a try instead. Tandy denied the accusations of deliberately giving away possession and a penalty to allow the exotic option on the bets to be successful. Despite this, he was arrested on 2 February 2011 for providing false evidence to a law enforcement agency during the investigation of the betting scandal. Tandy was in more than $70,000 debt at the time of the match, owing to losses from his own long-standing gambling addiction. On 6 October 2011, Tandy was found to be guilty of manipulating the first scoring point of the game. He received an intensive correction order for six months. It required: community service, supervision and curfew, but he could have been jailed for two years. He appealed the charge in January 2014 but lost the case. Tandy received a lifetime ban from NRL rugby league over the spot fixing.

Later life and death

In January 2014, Tandy was arrested and charged with kidnapping in connection with the recovery of a drug debt from the victim, police alleging that Tandy was serving as a standover man. Three months after being bailed, Tandy was found dead at his parents' home in

Saratoga, New South Wales Saratoga is a residential south-eastern village and List of Central Coast suburbs, suburb of the Central Coast (New South Wales), Central Coast region of New South Wales, Australia, located on a peninsula of Brisbane Water and part of the Local ...

, following what is believed to have been an accidental overdose of prescription drugs.

References

External links

Melbourne Storm profileWests Tigers profileIreland profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tandy, Ryan 1981 births 2014 deaths 21st-century Australian criminals Australian people of Irish descent Australian rugby league players Balmain Ryde-Eastwood Tigers players Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs players Doncaster R.L.F.C. players Drug-related deaths in Australia Hull Kingston Rovers players Ireland national rugby league team players Irish rugby league players Melbourne Storm players New South Wales Residents rugby league team players Rugby league controversies Rugby league players from Gosford, New South Wales Rugby league props Rugby league second-rows South Sydney Rabbitohs players St. George Illawarra Dragons players Sportspeople banned for life Sportspeople from Wollongong Western Suburbs Rosellas players Wests Tigers players Whitehaven R.L.F.C. players 21st-century Australian sportsmen