Ricky Thorby

Ricky Thorby (born 2 October 1985 in New Zealand) is a rugby league player who last played for the North Queensland Cowboys in the National Rugby League. He previously played for the St. George Illawarra Dragons.
His positions of choice are in the second-row or at Prop.
His junior club was the Foxton Rebels and he later played for the Central Falcons in the Bartercard Cup. He also played for the Innisfail Leprechauns in the C.D.R.L.
Since 2008, Ricky has been generally assigned to play for St George Illawarra's feeder club (the Shellharbour Dragons) as a Prop.
After playing over 20 games for the Dragons over 4 seasons of NRL Thorby signed a two-year contract with the North Queensland Cowboys in order to receive more game time. Thrby was named in the Cowboys Round 2 and 6 sides in 2011 but was ruled out of both clashes due to injury, which happened to be an injury effected first season in the prop's first season with the townsville club. Thorby was only available for the club for only half the season in 2011, playing well for feeder club Northern Pride after injuries plagued his season.
In 2012 Thorby was a stand-out in the Cowboys pre-season and trials and was rewarded with an 18th man spot in the clubs Round 4 clash against the Cronulla Sharks.
Thorby made his first appearance for the Cowboys Round 5 game against the Canberra Raiders, he replaced Co-Captain Matthew Scott and ran for an impressive 94 metres off the bench. He was since retained his spot for the Cowboys and has gone on to play 3 games so far in 2012 impressing in all of them.
In Round 8 2012 Thorby was rewarded with player of the match award with The anzac teddy for his strong carries. In this game Thorby made 119 metres from just 10 runs.
Thorby had been one of the most improved players in the 2012 NRL season and has been described a human bowling ball. In his side's Round 10 away win against Newcastle he suffered rib cartlidge damage during his first hit-up of the game, he bravely toughed the game out, playing on for 26 minutes after the injury occurred. Assistant coach Peter Ryan said the following day it showed what the team meant to Thorby.
Thorby came off contract with the Cowboys at the end of the 2012 NRL Season.

Thorby is married to Kirrily Hardy and the pair have two young children together.

After coming off contract with the NRL Thorby had plans to retire and join the Police force but those plans were halted by previous driving indiscretions.He has been denied until 2016.