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My thoughts go to his family

Very sad news. Without wanting to draw conclusions from one horrible incident, I think it shows the sport on both sides of the world still has a way to go in looking after its players.

Thoughts go out to his family.

very sad news he was obviously very popular amongst other players from the comments. Highlights how important it is that players have a higher education and a career outside of rugby. Can you imagine earning 100k a year and then going in to a job at entry level on 25-30k. Kris Radlinski said something very important in a blog recently about players receiving financial advise and being educated on it.

I know this may have nothing to do with the circumstances but hopefully it would go a long way to helping retired players, you hear a lot of players receiving degrees and trades which is only a good thing.

Yep. RL is in a bit of a unique situation in this country in that it elevates players wages and certainly their publicity to quite a large degree but not to a level where it sets them up for life.
Terry Newton & Sean Long are the 2 obvious examples. Both played to a high level and would be considered top players in the country. Both would have been on high wages, yet both need a career post playing and there are only so many coaching spots available.
I know, especially with Terry Newton, there were other factors at play too but I think the principle still applies.
A highly paid, adulated player. When those 2 things were taken away there was a big hole left.

Now obviously the player takes some responsibility for not planning for their post-playing days, but I still think we need to do more to help them, because our sport often takes some poorly educated people and turns them into heroes. But a that ends very, very quickly and we know some of them won't be equipped to deal with it.

I was going to say the RFL should maybe try and team up with another sport to help with some kind of post-playing careers service to help get players into jobs outside the game. But having thought about it I'm not sure which other sport would be suitable. Footballers are, or should be, set for life (maybe some League 1/League 2/Conference players? I don't really know how much they get paid). Maybe with Union? But it's often a very different scenario with a lot of Union players coming from public schools.

fairly off topic, but its always been a crying shame in my opinion how few of the games players find a career within the game post playing bar a few part-time positions in youth coaching etc.

I agree the top clubs seem to be encouraging it a lot more and i know Widnes helped Jon Clarke as well. If they have a career and not a massive decline in earnings it should help them avoid depression. Its a hard one because players are scouted from Local Amateur teams rather than college and university. I believe that the top schools in England do offer scholarships for union amateur maybe thats something the RFL need to look at.

There is a huge amount of contributing factors to this story. So I imagine it will be difficult to understand the root cause for this particular fellow.

But given the wider issue of post playing careers, if there is not already, surely we could set up a 1 day training event for all new pro players in the last 12 months.
Simple advice showing the average wage, the average career span. The choices available from spending it all to splitting your money 50/50 between today and the future. Telling players that with their down time whilst playing they should be using it to set up businesses, get educated etc etc.

I don't know if this is already in place, I think Wellens has some kind of involvement in something along these lines. There are a few Saints lads and ex saint lads who it was well known finished their eduacation or training before going fulltime.

The latest is Swift who finished his engineering training. In the end it's their choice, but they should have the choice put to them at least once in their careers.

The average professional football career lasts something like four years. Those with a long Premier League career will be fine but most footballers will have to work after retiring. A journeyman Div 2, Conference player has no chance of retiring at the end of his career. Most Div 2 players will earn more than the national average wage but will be on a one or two year contract. I knew a lad who signed for a Div 2 team on £125 a week,he was young enough to take that risk. Some of the Conference teams are part timers.

Condolences to Ryan's family and friends. Hopefully any lessons that are uncovered can be learnt.

Yeah obviously the lower down the leagues then the lower the wages but in 2009/10 season League 1 players average wage was £73k and apparently that will be increased by 50-100% by bonuses/appearances. So that's still a decent wage and above SL level of IIRC £66k average.
But you're right it's still not going to set a player up for life.

Like I said, maybe the RFL should try and team up with the FA and set up some kind of post-playing careers service for RL and League 1/League 2/ Conference players.

Just for interest, there's a big jump from League 1 to Championship.

Football Average wage 2009/10 season (basic pay, bonuses/appearances typically increase wage from 50-100%)

Premier League - £1,162,350
Championship - £211,068
League 1 - £73,320
League 2 - £38,844

I don't know of any official or semi official sources for SL or Championship average wages but if we go by the salary cap then:
SL - £66k (maybe a bit more due to various concessions/exemptions, but then obviously not all clubs are spending the full cap so that would bring the average down again)

RIP.
Thoughts go out to his family and friends.

Rest in peace, Ryan. Our thoughts are with your family and friends