Ryder, 21, was forced into the lead ruck role after a serious knee injury to David Hille and went on to become a key figure in the narrow victory with 16 possessions, 27 hit-outs, one goal and a jaw-dropping 13 tackles.
"Out of a difficult situation came an opportunity for a young man to realise that he had to take the game by the scruff of the neck," coach Matthew Knights said of the display.
"What I've been crying out for, and the team's been crying out for, is when he got the ball he actually took the game on. He's such a quiet, laconic young man that we've found it difficult to get that out of him, but I think the moment and the day forced it out of him.
"Now that he's got that belief I think he should be able to take it a bit further."
Ryder, the No.7 pick overall in the 2005 NAB AFL Draft, rucked all day against Josh Fraser and Leigh Brown and duly rewarded the faith of his coach.
"It was thrown up in the box in the first quarter some possible solutions to give Patrick a chop out with potentially Nathan Lovett-Murray or even Scott Lucas," he said.
"[But] he was going so beautifully that I wasn't that keen to change. When they kept throwing it up in the box 'do we need to give Paddy a rest?' I said 'no way, we'll just keep pushing and pushing with him'.
“Thankfully he ran out the game well."
The fact that Ryder has been used only sparingly in the role to this point in a 57-game career only enhanced the merit of the performance for Knights and went a long way toward validating the club's approach to his development.
"The advantage that we saw in playing Patrick in defence for two or three years until his body matured was he is very defensive-minded [now]," Knights explained.
"Therefore he's going to be very good at spoiling and tackling, so that gives him the opportunity when he's in the ruck to have really good defensive focus.
"What we saw today was him taking the space when he had the ball in his hands, we saw his leg power, we saw his leg speed.
"I just knew when he kicked that goal on the run to get us going there late in the game that was the sign for me that he was really up for it today.
"He will definitely play a pretty big part in the ruck now for the rest of the year. There's no question about that."
