Paul Gallen and Phil Gould have finally settled their old score, sparked by Gus slamming a culture of "selfishness" in the former NSW captain's State of Origin team.
Gould criticised Gallen's selection for the 2015 Origin series, when he returned for NSW in game two after a long injury lay-off. Gus thought that it was time for the Blues to move on, despite Gallen captaining the breakthrough 2014 series win and earning the Wally Lewis Medal as man of the series.
But his definitive blast came after Origin II of 2016, which the Blues lost 26-16 in Brisbane to concede the series. The defeat again handed Queensland consecutive series victories and meant the record-breaking Maroons had 10 wins in 11 years.
"You feel that there's just something missing there and I guess unless you're involved with them you can't really pick out what that is, but over a period of time I've said I've been astonished by the selfishness around this camp and around this team and in the leadership group," Gould said of the NSW team.
"And I don't think it's allowed the team to evolve and to have its own culture and its own chemistry. It's been all about a few individuals and not about the the state and about the team.
"It's no good sugar-coating the bitter pill. I keep saying that's the problem with us and until that goes, until that element is removed from it, NSW can't get over the line against this side."
Gallen and Gould have now thrashed out the explosive accusation for Wide World of Sports.
A "hurt" Gallen was man of the match for Australia in the Anzac Test before Origin that year and went on to skipper Cronulla's maiden premiership. He called Gould back in 2016 seeking answers, feeling he had been "wronged". Yet a planned meeting never eventuated and Gallen retired from representative football after that season.
"Those comments did hurt. Gus is a big personality, we know that, and he knows a lot about rugby league," Gallen said on The Captain and Coach, revealing that Gould's blast had sparked a snap review within the NSW camp.
"State of Origin does bring out a lot of passion in people and as Gus said, it was a very, very tough time for NSW. Unfortunately for myself, I was there for a lot of it ... and it was hard. It was as hard as it comes.
"I think that's what frustrated me most about what Gus said at the time, is here's a guy who is regarded as NSW's greatest ever coach and got a lot of clout in the game. I was there busting my backside, I'm putting my reputation on the line, putting my body on the line for my state, doing everything I could.
"And just to cop that, to hear that from him, was hard. It was tough to handle in 2016; 2015 I didn't care so much, but 2016 I did.
"It got to the point where I contacted senior players in the team and I said, 'Look, we've got to sort this out'. I had people telling me, 'Mate, you're finished in Origin, leave it. Who cares, leave it'. And I couldn't do it, you know.
"I thought a lot of Boyd Cordner, I thought he would be the next captain and I thought, 'Nah, I need to address what's happened'.
"So myself and other senior players actually went into NSW Rugby League with [chief executive] Dave Trodden, with [coach] Laurie Daley and some of the coaching staff, to see if we could figure out what Gus had meant by the selfish culture around the senior players. Look, to be honest with you, we couldn't figure it out.
"It got to the point where we went through camps, we discussed the camps and what we did in the camps, how the camps were run. It even got to the point where we analysed individually our games, over the first two games; what run we had, where we had it, why we had it.
"It got right down to that and because we knew the game plan and Laurie knew the game plan - myself and [vice-captain] Robbie [Farah] were there, Greg Bird was on the Skype call - there was nothing we had done that would indicate we were stepping outside of the game plan.
"That's what made it even harder. It was after that I tried to contact Gus, but it never came about."
Gould said that he would have delivered exactly the same message to the team had he been the coach.
He felt that Gallen's side had failed to nurture new players and was weighed down by veterans clinging to their places; an entrenched selfishness, rather than individual actions within games. Farah, as the vice-captain and veteran hooker, was also implicated at the time as a guilty party.
"This was a time of extreme frustration, for NSW, for NSW fans and for those of us who had been involved with Origin and loved to see NSW win," Gould said on The Captain and Coach.
"What I did as a coach, I tried to do as a commentator and be extremely honest about what I see. And what I saw was a team that just wasn't evolving, it wasn't getting any better.
"And during that extraordinary run, we had used something like 19 different halves combinations, we'd had eight different fullbacks, we'd had four different hookers. But the game was never given to our playmakers.
"I felt as though the problem with our team is that it hadn't evolved nor had it been given a chance to evolve, because our young playmakers - many of them thrown to the wolves - or those we'd tried to persevere with were never really given ownership of the team.
"And it's senior players were coming more to the fore, either as a lack of trust of their halves or because [of] what I explained as a selfishness, a self-survival in keeping their own position in the team.
"Now as a coach, that's how I would have addressed it, which is why I spoke publicly about it. Naturally everyone pointed the finger at Paul, because he was the captain and I guess he took offence to it as well. He actually rang me at that time looking to have a meeting about it, which we didn't get together with.
"For Paul, it obviously would have felt very differently inside that camp."
Gallen denied that senior players had acted with deliberate selfishness at any stage during his Origin career, which spanned from 2006 to 2016. He also denied holding younger players back, with current mainstays such as Cordner, David Klemmer and Tyson Frizell blooded during his career.
"I'm fine with it, I'm now a part of the media, I understand Gus' position. But at the time, for a person of his stature in the game, it was a bit tough," Gallen said.
"But rest assured ... you can go over it with a former coach, Ricky Stuart, Laurie Daley, Craig Bellamy, there was never senior players or anybody in the team that was not doing the right thing by the team or following the team structure and doing exactly what we thought was the right thing to do."
Gould said that he did not enjoy his media position during the Origin period, because his stature as NSW's greatest coach turned every comment into a headline.
"Origin is a very frustrating time for me, because it's not actually the time I enjoy being in the media," Gould said.
"As Paul said, because of the status I had within Origin and the number of years I was there, everything I say is going to be taken exactly like that way.
"People are going to either exaggerate the impact of what I've said or take it personally or feel as though because it's been said by me, then there must be some sort of agenda behind it; and there never was.
"I'm just glad I wasn't 30 years younger, because he [Gallen] would have probably challenged me to get in the [boxing] ring!"
Gallen said that there was a simple answer to NSW's lack of success against Queensland throughout his career.
"I just put it down to this. Now that I'm retired, away from it, I can admit we just ran into a red-hot Queensland outfit that just had some of the best players to ever play the game," he said.
"In 110 years of rugby league, there's been eight Immortals (before 2018). I know the Immortals tag gets thrown around a little bit too much, but you think about guys like Cameron Smith. Cameron Smith will be an Immortal.
"If Johnathan Thurston was an Immortal, no one would argue. If Darren Lockyer was an Immortal, no one would argue. Then we've got a guy named Cooper Cronk, who's got a better record than all of them. And I'm not even mentioning guys like Billy Slater and Greg Inglis and Justin Hodges at his peak and Matt Scott at his peak.
"We just ran into a red-hot team and unfortunately it was throughout my time in Origin. Someone had to be there and I thought I did my best, without a doubt, to hold the fort for NSW. Now, I'm really, really glad to see they've won two series in a row and hopefully it can continue."
from WWOS http://wwos.nine.com.au/nrl/paul-gallen-phil-gould-nsw-blues-origin-selfish-culture-score-settled/58ae8d01-d545-4316-a63b-bb75ac47e23c
0 Comments