Roydon John Masters AM (born 15 October 1941) is an Australian sports journalist and former rugby league football coach.
He qualified as a teacher in 1963 and following posts at Tweed River and Armidale, Masters taught at Tamworth High School and coached their rugby league side to victory in the prestigious University Shield schoolboys competition.
In 1972 he was selected as coach of the inaugural Australian Schoolboys representative side which featured such future stars as Ian Schubert, Craig Young, Les Boyd and Royce Ayliffe.
He created this term after a fiery exhibition match between the two sides in Melbourne when Masters was happy to spread a false rumour that the Sea Eagles had stayed at a luxury resort while Wests had to make do with a two-star hotel.
[2] Masters left Western Suburbs when it emerged that the Magpies' affiliated leagues club at Ashfield would no longer be able to support the incomes of his key "fibros" players.
[5] Masters also covers soccer, boxing and a variety of other sports, famously criticising American jingoism at the opening ceremony of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games.
However, Masters has criticised FFA chairman Frank Lowy in a series of articles detailing Australian soccer's financial problems, in spite of the Socceroos' success at the World Cup.
He questioned whether Lowy, Australia's second richest man, would repay an Australian Sports Commission loan of over A$3 million, to help develop a national league.
[9] Whilst continuing to write articles for The Sydney Morning Herald, in 2010 Masters released a book, Higher, Richer, Sleazier: How Drugs and Money Are Changing Sport Forever.