Career
He has coached the Newcastle Knights in the National Rugby League and the Fiji national team Stone played for the South Sydney Rabbitohs, appearing in a handful of first-grade games in the 1989 Winfield Cup premiership. Stone played for and later captain coached the Nambucca Heads Roosters in the Group 2 Rugby League winning two premierships in 1992 and 1993.
In 1994, Stone later joined Queensland Cup side Burleigh whom he coached for 13 seasons, winning three premierships during that time.
He coached the club to a 6-10 loss against Great Britain in a warm-up match for the 1999 Tri-nations series. Stone started at Newcastle as assistant coach to Michael Hagan.
During the 2009 NRL season, Stone"s fourth at the Newcastle Knights, the head coach, Brian Smith, resigned. Stone, then assistant coach to Smith, was appointed to the position of coach for the remainder of the season.
With the signing of supercoach Wayne Bennett at the Knights for the next four years starting in 2012, Stone re-signed with the Knights for another 4 years to be assistant coach to Bennett and take over after Bennett leaves.
He was named head coach of Fiji in 2011, and will guide them in the 2013 Rugby League World Cup. On 11 August 2014, it was announced that Stone would be taking over as coach of the Knights again on a 2-year contract starting in 2015, following Wayne Bennett"s decision to move to the Brisbane Broncos in 2015. On October 18, 2014, Rick Stone named a 19-man Fiji team for the Inaugural Hayne/Mannah Cup test match against Lebanon.
This match would be Rick Stone"s last match as Fiji coach, due to him becoming head coach at the Newcastle Knights again.
Stone was fired as Newcastle"s head coach in July 2015.