It is no surprise that Queensland Maroons hit-man Peter Ryan popped ribs in his State of Origin debut after trying to inflict maximum pain on New South Wales.
By the time the 1998 season had rolled around Ryan had been voted the biggest hitter in the game for several years in Rugby League Week magazine and was famed for the kamikaze approach to his work.
Just ask David Peachey, who Ryan hit like a rocket fired out of a canon in the 1997 Super League grand final, a tackle that led to a try and assured victory for the Brisbane Broncos.
Self-preservation may be a word in the dictionary but it was never in the vocabulary of the wild man from Laidley.
Ryan, who is now the Queensland Reds assistant coach, played five games for Queensland but three of them were in the Super League Tri-Series, which don’t count in official Origin statistics.
Ryan is credited with just his two Origin matches in 1998, but at the end of the 1997 Tri-Series he was involved in a 104-minute Tri-Series final that was won by NSW courtesy of a Noel Goldthorpe field goal.
"I am really disappointed that they are not recognised officially," Ryan said.
"In 1997 we still bled the maroon colour. We bled Queensland-red blood for the cause. It was a tough competition and that 104-minute final was unheard of. I’m not sure if there has been another game that has gone as long.
"We are all Queenslanders and a lot of the same guys pulled on the jersey the following year. I’d like them to give me five Origin games, but I’ll take the two."
In 1998 Ryan had been out of action for the Broncos for six weeks, played one game in Round 10 against the Cronulla Sharks and was rushed straight into the Maroons side for his official Origin debut at the Sydney Football Stadium.
"There was a little bit of conjecture about my selection because I had come off an injury and hadn’t been playing. Next thing I knew I was picked as the starting lock in the State of Origin team," Ryan recalled.
"In that first match I popped a couple of ribs and that put me out until the third game of that series, and I was picked again.
"That opening game of the series was memorable for Tonie Carroll coming on the field and scoring right at the end to give us a one-point win [24-23].
"It was memorable for me too because I’d played on with those popped ribs. Every time you move with those you are in some sort of pain. You can’t go to the toilet. You can’t laugh. You can’t sneeze. You can’t fart."
Ryan could yahoo though once the siren went, and he did.
"I was in pain and jumping up and down with Choppy Close all over me after that game,” Ryan said.
"I’d watched the first State of Origin in 1980 with a sense of pride and I always wanted to play State of Origin from that point forward.
"One of the reasons I enjoyed my Origin games was because Choppy, the epitome of State of Origin in my mind, was involved as the team manager. He was man of the match in that first Origin game I watched.
"In fact I played reserve grade against him when I was an 18-year-old and he was playing for the Gold Coast. I tried to put a hit on that big arse of his and he swung his big hip onto my shoulder and the whole right side of my body went numb. I can still remember the pain to this day.
"Choppy, what a great bloke he is and what a man to have around a group of young blokes wanting to bleed for Queensland in State of Origin."
Talk to the Broncos members of the FOGS of 1998 and there was a determination to win both the Origin series and the inaugural NRL title, which they did.
The fact Bennett was the coach of both teams was another bonus, as it was for Ryan in his own personal situation.
"Wayne had full autonomy in terms of selection,” Ryan said.
"He had said to me a number of times in my career that it didn’t matter what game it was he knew what he would get from me.
"I was never any rock star as a player but I turned up and did my job week-in and week-out. Sometimes I’d give a little bit more in forcing a turnover with a couple of decent shots or in getting a decent ball away so we’d score a try, and that was a bonus.
"I took that mindset into that first State of Origin game. That is what Wayne wanted. He already had enough rock stars in the team and didn’t need another one in me."
Ryan had a chuckle when he said the reason he injured himself in his first Origin was "probably because I was trying to go too hard".
"That was what State of Origin was about. I remember as a child the first hit-ups in Origin were biffo and head-highs," Ryan grinned.
"Shane Webcke was amazing in that 1998 series and in particular the decider. His tenacity in getting over the advantage line and getting quick play the balls for the next guy was crucial."
Ryan missed 10 weeks of the 1999 season with a knee injury and as a result was not selected in that year’s Origin series. The next year he embarked on a rugby union career with the ACT Brumbies where, in 2001, he became the first person to win both Super Rugby and NRL titles.
Post-playing Ryan was an assistant coach at both the Broncos and North Queensland Cowboys. It was his defensive systems that played a huge role in Brisbane winning the 2006 grand final against Melbourne, a fact acknowledged by Bennett.
"I never copped many accolades from Wayne but I did when he said to me 'defence won us that grand final'. I replied 'bloody oath'," Ryan chuckled.
Ryan is now assistant coach at the Queensland Reds, where he is his old Maroons and Broncos teammate Brad Thorn’s sparring partner.
The Super Rugby season is in a hiatus, like all professional sport at the moment, but Ryan was only too happy to answer Thorn’s request after a successful stint with the Brumbies.
"I’ve coached in both codes and you have to go where the work is. Prior to coaching with the Queensland Reds I was assistant coach doing defence with the Brumbies," Ryan said.
"I had resigned from the Brumbies [in 2018] without having a job to go to, the only reason being that I had basically been away from my wife and kids working and living in Canberra and getting back to Queensland whenever I could because we didn’t want to move our kids out of the schools they were in at the time.
"Next thing Brad Thorn gives me a call and asks whether I want to be assistant coach of the Reds, so it was perfect timing and I was just fortunate that Brad still thought of me in a good light.
"Brad is one of the four guys - with myself, Sonny Bill Williams and Will Chambers - that have done the Super Rugby/NRL double as champions."
Ryan said he has had "an absolute ball" in both codes as a player and a coach.
"I’m just enjoying the fact that I can still work in sport at 40-odd years of age," Ryan said.
