Ryan Cross
Encyclopedia
Ryan Cross is a Rugby Union
football player for Racing Metro 92 after signing from USA Perpignan
in the French Top 14. He previously played for the Sydney Roosters
in the National Rugby League
(NRL) competition, the Western Force
and the NSW Waratahs in Super Rugby.
, Ryan was a product of Waverley College
, and was a member of the Australian Rugby Union
Schoolboys side in both 1996 and 1997, some of his team-mates being future Wallabies
Matt Dunning
, Adam Freier
, David Lyons
, George Smith
, Phil Waugh
, and rugby league star Craig Wing
. But he decided to switch codes and joined the Sydney Roosters
rugby league
club.
. After a promising start to his league career, including a Grand Final appearance in 2000, the Roosters'
first in 20 years, he had two serious leg injuries. A broken leg saw him miss much of the 2001 NRL season at a time when he was touted as being in line to make his State of Origin debut. Just a few matches into the 2002 NRL season he suffered a major knee injury that kept him out for the remainder of that year. That season, Sydney Roosters won the Premiership, their first in 27 years. Cross returned in the 2003 NRL season, finishing as the club's leading try
-scorer. He played at centre in the Roosters' loss to the Panthers in the 2003 NRL Grand Final
. Cross then played in the Roosters loss to the Bulldogs in the 2004 NRL Grand Final. Cross was the 2005 Sydney Roosters player of the year.
In 2004 and 2005 he was chosen to represent City Origin
.
Cross left the Roosters as the fifth-highest try scorer in the club's history, with 85 tries from his 143 matches. He also played in three losing Grand Finals for the club.
Ryan's father, Paul Cross
, was an Eastern suburbs junior who played on the wing for the club in the 1964 and 1965 seasons. His brother Clay
is a notable shot put
athlete
. Representing Australia at the Commonwealth Games in 1998
in Kuala Lumpur
, 2002
in Manchester
and 2006
in Melbourne
.
In 2005 he was suspended for six weeks for eye-gouging Parramatta
's Glenn Morrison
in a match which the Roosters won 12-8. His absence proved costly for the Roosters as they just missed the finals that year.
and went to Perth
to play for the new Super 14
side, the Western Force
. He made his debut with the club on 2 February 2007, against the Highlanders
. He went on to play every match that season and scored three tries.
After an outstanding 2008 Super 14 season
, in which he won The West Australian/Rosendorff Emirates Western Force Player of the Year Award, Cross was called up for national duty by new Wallabies
coach Robbie Deans
.
He scored his first Wallaby try against France
at the Suncorp Stadium
, Brisbane
in his second test on 5 July 2008, having come on as a Second-Half replacement. He followed this with another try later on in the game, both came from Matt Giteau
passes.
Ryan Cross got his full test debut against New Zealand on 26 July in place of the injured Stirling Mortlock
. He scored the first try which contributed to the 34-19 victory over the All Blacks.
In 2011 Cross signed with the NSW Waratahs and played in 15 matches during the 2011 Super Rugby season. After playing off the bench in the first few matches, Cross then played the remaining matches as the regular starting centre, including the semi final loss to the Auckland Blues in Auckland
.
At the conclusion of the 2011 Super Rugby season Cross signed for USA Perpignan
in the French Top 14. The 3 month contract was cover for centres David Marty
and Maxime Mermoz
who were on 2011 Rugby World Cup
duty with the French team
who lost the final to host team New Zealand. He currently plays for Racing Metro 92.
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
football player for Racing Metro 92 after signing from USA Perpignan
USA Perpignan
Union Sportive des Arlequins Perpignanais or Unió eSportiva Arlequins de Perpinyà , generally abbreviated as USAP in both languages, is a French rugby union club that plays in the city of Perpignan in Pyrénées-Orientales. The club currently competes in the Top 14, the top level of the French...
in the French Top 14. He previously played for the Sydney Roosters
Sydney Roosters
The Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. The club competes in the National Rugby League and is one of the oldest and most successful clubs in Australian rugby league history, having won twelve New South Wales Rugby League...
in the National Rugby League
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand...
(NRL) competition, the Western Force
Western Force
Western Force is a rugby union team based in Perth, Western Australia playing in the international Super Rugby competition. They first competed in the 2006 season and finished with the wooden spoon in that year, however their performances greatly improved in 2007. In 2008 they finished in 8th...
and the NSW Waratahs in Super Rugby.
Early career
Son of former rugby league player Paul CrossPaul Cross
Paul Cross was a rugby league footballer who played in the New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership. He reached the 1966 season's Grand Final with the Balmain Tigers and in 1971 was the NSWRFL's top try-scorer....
, Ryan was a product of Waverley College
Waverley College
Waverley College is a Roman Catholic, secondary, day school for boys, located at Waverley, in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
, and was a member of the Australian Rugby Union
Australian Rugby Union
The Australian Rugby Union is the governing body of rugby union in Australia. It was founded in 1949 and is a member of the International Rugby Board the sport's governing body. It consists of eight member unions, representing each state and territory...
Schoolboys side in both 1996 and 1997, some of his team-mates being future Wallabies
Australia national rugby union team
The Australian national rugby union team is the representative side of Australia in rugby union. The national team is nicknamed the Wallabies and competes annually with New Zealand and South Africa in the Tri-Nations Series, in which they also contest the Bledisloe Cup with New Zealand and the...
Matt Dunning
Matt Dunning
Matt Dunning is an Australian rugby union footballer. He was educated at Northholm Grammar School and represented New South Wales and Australian Schools, U19s and U21s. Dunning plays club rugby for Eastwood and has represented the New South Wales Waratahs in the Super 14 since 2001...
, Adam Freier
Adam Freier
Adam Freier is a rugby union footballer. He most recently played for the New South Wales Waratahs in the international Super 14 competition. His usual position is at hooker...
, David Lyons
David Lyons
David Lyons plays Number Eight for the Wallabies.-Playing career:From his debut in 2000 Lyons played 83 consecutive games for Waratahs, a record for Australian players. His run ended when a knee injury forced him to miss the start of the 2007 season...
, George Smith
George Smith (rugby player)
George Smith is an Australian rugby union player. He is a flanker for Toulon. He won 110 caps for Australia before retiring from international rugby on 5 February 2010. He made his Test debut in 2000 against France in Paris and he is the most capped Wallaby forward, and the most capped flanker in...
, Phil Waugh
Phil Waugh
Phillip Waugh is an Australian rugby union player, widely regarded as one of the world's leading flankers.His career as a player began at the Shore School, Captaining the school's team in 1997...
, and rugby league star Craig Wing
Craig Wing
Craig Wing is an Australian rugby union player. He currently plays rugby union in Japan. A former rugby league player for New South Wales State of Origin and Australian international utility player, Wing played for South Sydney Rabbitohs and Sydney Roosters.-South Sydney Rabbitohs:Craig Wing was a...
. But he decided to switch codes and joined the Sydney Roosters
Sydney Roosters
The Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. The club competes in the National Rugby League and is one of the oldest and most successful clubs in Australian rugby league history, having won twelve New South Wales Rugby League...
rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
club.
Rugby league career
Cross made a spectacular first-grade debut on 17 April 1998, scoring two tries against the Manly-Warringah Sea EaglesManly-Warringah Sea Eagles
The Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles are an Australian professional rugby league club based on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. They compete in the National Rugby League's Telstra Premiership, the premier rugby league competition of Australasia...
. After a promising start to his league career, including a Grand Final appearance in 2000, the Roosters'
Sydney Roosters
The Sydney Roosters are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. The club competes in the National Rugby League and is one of the oldest and most successful clubs in Australian rugby league history, having won twelve New South Wales Rugby League...
first in 20 years, he had two serious leg injuries. A broken leg saw him miss much of the 2001 NRL season at a time when he was touted as being in line to make his State of Origin debut. Just a few matches into the 2002 NRL season he suffered a major knee injury that kept him out for the remainder of that year. That season, Sydney Roosters won the Premiership, their first in 27 years. Cross returned in the 2003 NRL season, finishing as the club's leading try
Try
A try is the major way of scoring points in rugby league and rugby union football. A try is scored by grounding the ball in the opposition's in-goal area...
-scorer. He played at centre in the Roosters' loss to the Panthers in the 2003 NRL Grand Final
2003 NRL grand final
The 2003 NRL grand final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding match of the 2003 NRL season. In what was a contest of Sydney's east versus west, defending premiers and match favourites, the Sydney Roosters played against minor premiers and underdogs, the Penrith Panthers...
. Cross then played in the Roosters loss to the Bulldogs in the 2004 NRL Grand Final. Cross was the 2005 Sydney Roosters player of the year.
In 2004 and 2005 he was chosen to represent City Origin
City vs Country Origin
City vs Country is an annual Australian rugby league football match that takes place in New South Wales between City and Country representative sides. The City side represents the Sydney metropolitan area...
.
Cross left the Roosters as the fifth-highest try scorer in the club's history, with 85 tries from his 143 matches. He also played in three losing Grand Finals for the club.
Ryan's father, Paul Cross
Paul Cross
Paul Cross was a rugby league footballer who played in the New South Wales Rugby Football League premiership. He reached the 1966 season's Grand Final with the Balmain Tigers and in 1971 was the NSWRFL's top try-scorer....
, was an Eastern suburbs junior who played on the wing for the club in the 1964 and 1965 seasons. His brother Clay
Clay Cross (athlete)
Clay Cross is an Australian shot putter. He won the Australian championships in 1996, 1997, 1999 and 2005.His personal best is 19.42 metres, achieved in June 2004...
is a notable shot put
Shot put
The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" a heavy metal ball—the shot—as far as possible. It is common to use the term "shot put" to refer to both the shot itself and to the putting action....
athlete
Athletics (track and field)
Athletics is an exclusive collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and race walking...
. Representing Australia at the Commonwealth Games in 1998
1998 Commonwealth Games
The 1998 XVI Commonwealth Games were held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 11 September to 21 September 1998 making it the first Asian country to act as host and the last Commonwealth Games for the 20th century. A record 70 nations supplied 3638 athletes...
in Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...
, 2002
2002 Commonwealth Games
The 2002 Commonwealth Games were held in Manchester, England from 25 July to 4 August 2002. The XVII Commonwealth Games was the largest multi-sport event ever to be held in the UK, eclipsing London's 1948 Summer Olympics in numbers of teams and athletes participating.After the 1996 Manchester...
in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
and 2006
2006 Commonwealth Games
The 2006 Commonwealth Games were held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia between 15 March and 26 March 2006. It was the largest sporting event to be staged in Melbourne, eclipsing the 1956 Summer Olympics in terms of the number of teams competing, athletes competing, and events being held.The site...
in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
.
In 2005 he was suspended for six weeks for eye-gouging Parramatta
Parramatta Eels
The Parramatta Eels are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta. The Parramatta District Rugby League Football Club was formed in 1947, with their First Grade side playing their first season in the New South Wales Rugby Football League...
's Glenn Morrison
Glenn Morrison
Glenn Adam Morrison is a former Australian professional rugby league player. He played for the Parramatta Eels, Balmain Tigers, North Sydney Bears, and the North Queensland Cowboys in the National Rugby League before moving to England to play for the Bradford Bulls and then the Wakefield Trinity...
in a match which the Roosters won 12-8. His absence proved costly for the Roosters as they just missed the finals that year.
Rugby union career
In June 2006, after a period of speculation and rumour, Cross signed a two-year deal with the Australian Rugby UnionAustralian Rugby Union
The Australian Rugby Union is the governing body of rugby union in Australia. It was founded in 1949 and is a member of the International Rugby Board the sport's governing body. It consists of eight member unions, representing each state and territory...
and went to Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
to play for the new Super 14
Super 14
Super Rugby is the largest and pre-eminent professional Rugby union competition in the Southern Hemisphere...
side, the Western Force
Western Force
Western Force is a rugby union team based in Perth, Western Australia playing in the international Super Rugby competition. They first competed in the 2006 season and finished with the wooden spoon in that year, however their performances greatly improved in 2007. In 2008 they finished in 8th...
. He made his debut with the club on 2 February 2007, against the Highlanders
Highlanders (Super rugby franchise)
The Highlanders are a New Zealand professional rugby union team based in Dunedin that compete in Super Rugby. The franchise represents the North Otago, Otago and Southland provincial Rugby unions. The Highlanders take their name from the Scottish immigrants that helped found the Otago, North...
. He went on to play every match that season and scored three tries.
After an outstanding 2008 Super 14 season
2008 Super 14 season
The 2008 Super 14 season started in February 2008 with pre-season matches held from mid-January. It finished on 31 May, when the Crusaders won their seventh Super Rugby title with a 20–12 victory over the Waratahs in front of the Crusaders' home fans. The 2008 season was the third of the expansion,...
, in which he won The West Australian/Rosendorff Emirates Western Force Player of the Year Award, Cross was called up for national duty by new Wallabies
Australia national rugby union team
The Australian national rugby union team is the representative side of Australia in rugby union. The national team is nicknamed the Wallabies and competes annually with New Zealand and South Africa in the Tri-Nations Series, in which they also contest the Bledisloe Cup with New Zealand and the...
coach Robbie Deans
Robbie Deans
Robert Maxwell Deans is the current coach of the Wallabies and former All Black. He is the former coach of the Crusaders. He also served as assistant to former All Blacks coach John Mitchell between late 2001 and 2003...
.
He scored his first Wallaby try against France
France national rugby union team
The France national rugby union team represents France in rugby union. They compete annually against England, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales in the Six Nations Championship. They have won the championship outright sixteen times, shared it a further eight times, and have completed nine grand slams...
at the Suncorp Stadium
Suncorp Stadium
Lang Park is the original name of the site located in the Brisbane suburb of Milton, Queensland, Australia, now occupied by the major sports facility known by its sponsorship name, Suncorp Stadium...
, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
in his second test on 5 July 2008, having come on as a Second-Half replacement. He followed this with another try later on in the game, both came from Matt Giteau
Matt Giteau
Matthew Giteau is an Australian rugby union footballer, a former international who now plays for the French Top 14 side Toulon. He attended St Edmund's College, Canberra, which has produced other Wallabies including George Gregan, Matt Henjak and the former rugby league star and now coach Ricky...
passes.
Ryan Cross got his full test debut against New Zealand on 26 July in place of the injured Stirling Mortlock
Stirling Mortlock
Stirling Austin Mortlock is an Australian professional rugby union player. He has scored over 1,000 points in Super Rugby, and nearly 500 test points for the Wallabies. Mortlock is a former Wallaby and Brumbies captain, and the current captain of the Melbourne Rebels.-Early life:Mortlock began...
. He scored the first try which contributed to the 34-19 victory over the All Blacks.
In 2011 Cross signed with the NSW Waratahs and played in 15 matches during the 2011 Super Rugby season. After playing off the bench in the first few matches, Cross then played the remaining matches as the regular starting centre, including the semi final loss to the Auckland Blues in Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
.
At the conclusion of the 2011 Super Rugby season Cross signed for USA Perpignan
USA Perpignan
Union Sportive des Arlequins Perpignanais or Unió eSportiva Arlequins de Perpinyà , generally abbreviated as USAP in both languages, is a French rugby union club that plays in the city of Perpignan in Pyrénées-Orientales. The club currently competes in the Top 14, the top level of the French...
in the French Top 14. The 3 month contract was cover for centres David Marty
David Marty
David Marty is a French rugby union footballer who plays at center three-quarter in the Top 14 competition for Catalan club USA Perpignan, and has also played for France, having played in the 2005 and 2006 Six Nations....
and Maxime Mermoz
Maxime Mermoz
Maxime Mermoz is a professional rugby union centre currently playing for USA Perpignan in the Top 14.Mermoz won the 2006 Under 21 Rugby World Championship. He earned his first cap for the senior France national team on July 5, 2008 against Australia. He made his Six Nations in 2009 debut against...
who were on 2011 Rugby World Cup
2011 Rugby World Cup
The 2011 Rugby World Cup was the seventh Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. The International Rugby Board selected New Zealand as the host country in preference to Japan and South Africa at a meeting in Dublin on 17 November 2005...
duty with the French team
France national rugby union team
The France national rugby union team represents France in rugby union. They compete annually against England, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales in the Six Nations Championship. They have won the championship outright sixteen times, shared it a further eight times, and have completed nine grand slams...
who lost the final to host team New Zealand. He currently plays for Racing Metro 92.