Understanding what couldn't be achieved was every bit as important as understanding what could

Understanding what couldn't be achieved was every bit as important as understanding what could. I'd like to see Bristol play with some of that spirit, as long as it is tempered with a little realism."When Ryan followed Andrew to Sir John Hall's Newcastle in the autumn of 1995, he was at the cutting edge once again; not so much tactically, but professionally. "Some of the rugby we saw in South Africa during the 1994 England tour inspired us to push our game beyond the commonly accepted boundaries," he recalled. Along with Rob Andrew, he took the high-energy Wasps vintage of 1994-95 down the road of total rugby a full year before Laurie Mains and Sean Fitzpatrick did the same thing with the All Blacks. We're talking about quality players here, players with imagination; it will be a case of squaring their ideas with ours, of finding some common ground, of arriving at a cohesive approach."Fortunately for Bristol, Ryan has spent much of his career in the sporting laboratory and has a track record of successful experimentation. First up, we need to win early matches without our World Cup players.

Then, when the internationals get here, we need to pull all the strands together and find our feet quickly. "The season is really divided into two halves, both of them bringing their own particular problems. Assuming Bristol turns out to be a big enough town for the both of them, tomorrow night's Premiership curtain-raiser against Bedford could signal the start of something special."Because of the World Cup and its claims on so many Premiership players, including several of our own, we are in a uniquely complex situation," said Ryan this week as the remnants of his squad drifted into Combe Dingle, the superbly appointed Bristol University sports ground, for training. As player-coach at the Memorial Ground, he is working hand in glove with Bob Dwyer, the track-suited legend from Wallaby country.

He may be what seasoned rugby followers euphemistically describe as a handful, but he is many other things too: an acute thinker, an outstanding motivator, a radical and influential tactician and, in all probability, a Test-class coach in the making. His latest club, Bristol, have reeled in some mighty big fish during the last few months - Henry Honiball, Frank Bunce, Agustin Pichot, David Rees and Garath Archer would look good in anyone's landing net, as would Jamie Mayer, Spencer Brown and Adam Vander - but, according to a straw poll of those in the know, the real catch was Ryan himself.Having played a central role in the Wasps uprising of the mid-1990s and contributed equally significantly to the Newcastle rebellion that brought Premiership glory to Kingston Park two seasons ago, the 33-year-old back- row enforcer now finds himself at the heart of perhaps the most sweeping revolution yet seen in the short history of professional club rugby. Referees love the "other Deano" in the way mountaineers love Everest: that is to say, they cherish him as a challenge. ("Why do we referee him? Because he's there.") In an important Newcastle match the season before last, a respected match official glanced briefly at a semi-conscious Ryan spread-eagled on the grass following a particularly heavy double tackle and staggered a member of the opposition by saying: "That's one problem I haven't got, then." Yet he flatly refuses to live down to his reputation. To be sure, the man raises more eyebrows in the average grass-roots clubhouse than Lawrence Dallaglio and Will Carling combined; by comparison, Martin Johnson is the Virgin Mary of British forward play.