Paul Kent: How Phil Gould’s resting tactics with 1991 Panthers forced change to the rules
Panthers coach Ivan Cleary has taken advantage of Penrith’s lofty position on the table to rest a few stars before the finals. Phil Gould did the same, but on a much bigger scale with the club in 1991 — and it forced a change in the rules.
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Those of us with an elephant’s memory or perhaps a fondness for a touch of larceny require no grand effort to recall the first time Penrith, in position to win the minor premiership with several rounds remaining, rested a few players.
It was back in 1991 and the Panthers were travelling.
They were five points clear with three rounds to play when they came up against the lowly Cronulla Sharks at Caltex Field.
The Panthers had lost just three games all season. Cronulla hadn’t done anything for quite some time, and weren’t about to change that.
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The Sharks were 12th and had beaten nobody better than St George, who were currently fifth but on their way to a shocking collapse. Anything south of fifth was a failure in those days, a novel time when teams actually needed to have winning records to be afforded the opportunity to win it all by featuring in the playoffs.
The Panthers had lost the grand final to Canberra the season before but they had a certain steel about them this season. The Sharks, clearly, were just a blip on their way to bigger kills, hardly striking a blow all year.
Their eight wins came against Balmain (12th), twice against South Sydney (14th), Gold Coast (16th), St George (ninth), Newcastle (13th), Eastern Suburbs (11th) and, as we are about to find out, Penrith (first).
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Penrith coach Phil Gould was thinking bigger than the Sharks. Gould knew the true goal was to win the premiership, not some Sunday afternoon game at Caltex, and if resting a few players to help achieve that was the price to pay then it was a very small price at that.
So Gould sprung a selection surprise.
Missing from the team that would play the grand final just six weeks later was fullback Greg Barwick, who was having a breakout season, winger Graham Mackay (who would play for NSW and Australia the following season), five-eighth Brad Fittler (no introduction needed), prop Paul Dunn (NSW and Australia), backrower Mark Geyer (NSW and Australia) and utility Brad Izzard (NSW).
Royce Simmons (NSW and Australia) was coming back through reserve grade.
It was a heavyweight list unavailable.
It’s hardly a similar roll call on Tuesday night when Ivan Cleary, the Penrith coach leading his team to a minor premiership, also signalled he planned to rest some of his players, naming his team without James Tamou (NSW and Australia), Api Koroisau (Fiji and Prime Minister’s XIII) and Zane Tetevano (New Zealand) for Friday’s game against North Queensland.
These current Panthers lead the competition by three points with two rounds to play and are already agitating to have the minor premiership trophy presented not this week in Townsville but as late as the first week of the finals, in front of their home crowd.
In Gould’s time, coaches were not required to reveal their team until late in the week, it might have even been game day if memory serves, so by the time anybody was aware the Panthers were frighteningly light on internationals the gate was already sold.
And the bets were on.
Gould claimed the players were injured and unable to play. Speculation quickly grew they were simply being rested, which was an inconceivable thought at the time, despite its acceptance now.
“We couldn’t prove it and by then it was too late,” remembered John Quayle.
Quayle was the NSWRL chief executive at the time.
It all got a touch embarrassing for the game, to say nothing for Penrith, when word soon leaked that somebody had got early notice of Gould’s plan and backed Cronulla to win enough to pay for a good-sized sedan, and then some.
Gambling on rugby league was mostly illegal back then. Much of the heavy lifting was done through SP bookmakers while the small fish dabbled on FootyTAB.
Quayle was not naive to the plunge.
Here, Quayle and Arthurson had an advantage.
Quayle was strong friends with Jack Gibson and Ron Massey from his playing days. Massey, who once spent a night watering the track the night before a big meeting because he had backed a mud runner in the feature race, was the best informed gambler in Sydney.
Gibson, few outside the game knew at the time, had for a long time been one of Sydney’s biggest SP bookies.
Another close ally was bookmaker Colin Tidy. If that wasn’t enough Bill Mordey published the official program, Big League, and had every SP bookie in Sydney on speed dial.
“As soon as there was a sniff we knew about it,” Quayle said.
While it was close to impossible to discover who got the early tip and plunged on the Panthers such was the uproar the League changed the rule, requiring clubs to name their teams earlier in the week and listing those players in doubt.
It made not a bit of difference, in the end, but was a solid try.
Cronulla beat the Panthers, by the way, getting home 14-12 after defending their lead the final 15 minutes, 10 of which had them a man down when Gavin Miller was sent to the sin-bin.
PANTHERS, ROUND 20, 1991
1. Anthony Xuereb
2. Darren Willis
3. Col Bentley
4. Graeme Bradley
5. Paul Smith
6. Steve Carter
7. Greg Alexander (c)
8. Paul Clarke
9. Ben Alexander
10. Barry Walker
11. Mark Lyons
12. John Cartwright
13. Colin Van der Voort
Bench
14. Greg Barwick
15. Scott Ellem
16. Darren Stewart
Missing: Graham Mackay, Brad Fittler, Paul Dunn, Mark Geyer, Brad Izzard, Royce Simmons.
Originally published as Paul Kent: How Phil Gould’s resting tactics with 1991 Panthers forced change to the rules