Phil Gould opens up about personal cost of rebuilding Penrith Panthers

If you've phoned Phil Gould at any time in the past five years, there's every chance he's answered the call sitting in his car.

A meeting with a player manager here, lunch with a government official there, on his way to call a game for Channel Nine wherever.

A life in rugby league: Phil Gould.Credit: Jacky Ghossein

Or, more than likely, he's headed towards Penrith, the club where he played in the 1970s, won a breakthrough premiership in 1991 as coach, and in more recent times helped piece back together as general manger as the club teetered on the edge of oblivion.

It is also the place Gould left two years after the tragic death of Ben Alexander in a car accident midway through the 1992 season.

Alexander's brother, Greg, was never the same player again. Neither was Ben's best mate, Mark Geyer. As for Gould, the pain and bitterness edged him out the door to the Roosters.

"Every time I drive to Penrith I think about it," Gould says. "That part of my life was extremely difficult. I think about it every day to be honest.

"It's hard to talk about those days because we went from the highs to the lows very quickly. We won the club's first ever premiership then lost a special person in Ben in tragic circumstances the very next year. I loved Ben. I was very close to Ben. The damage it did to everyone at Penrith, not just his family and close friends, was enormous.

Gone too soon: Ben Alexander was killed in a car crash in 1992.

"That was a heartbreaking period for the club. Ben's death took its toll on so many people, and we were never the same people again.

"I love where the club is right now. I'm very proud of what we have developed. A lot of people have contributed along the way.

"It's also great we have people here like [1991 hooker] Royce Simmons and Greg Alexander and Jim Jones and Brad Waugh … We have a lot of people who were here in the '70s, '80s and after that, who are still involved today. We have a number of ex-Panther players now working at the club. They love the place. That's what makes a club: the people."

With Corey Payne now in place as chief executive, Gould will early next week announce he is standing down as Penrith's general manager of football after five years in the job. He will stay on as a consultant for the next four, navigating the club through a delicate period with its salary cap as its wealth of junior talent attracts greater interest from success-hungry clubs.

Fresh blood: Penrith Panthers CEO Corey Payne. Credit: Edwina Pickles

Yet it will be a dramatically reduced role as the 58-year-old concentrates on other areas of his life. And that is something he needs to do.

If I know the man at all, he enjoys talking about himself as much as seeing a straight-forward try sent to The Bunker for approval. Cut from the same cloth as a Bennett or Fulton, old footy coaches give very little away about their football team and just as much about themselves.

The rebuild Gould has achieved at Penrith – from a club close to insolvency with a shambolic salary cap and losing the fight with AFL in Sydney's west, to an emerging premiership force based at a new $21 million academy – has come at a personal cost.

"Last Monday, when Corey started, it was five years to the day that I started at Penrith," Gould says. "It's pretty much been 24-7 all the way. That's a long time out of your family's life, your kids' life, your own life. In that time, I've had the deteriorating health of my father who passed away in January, the cost of working that long and hard, but they're all personal things and sacrifice you make.

"Don't get me wrong. I've loved every minute of it. It's been a rewarding period of my life."

Premiership success: Phil Gould is jubilant after guiding the Panthers to the title in 1991.

Bruce Gould was a hardened Sydney copper for 38 years.

What did he teach his son?

"Everything," says Gould.

Similar man?

"Better at everything. He tried at one time to make me a policeman. I was off the rails when I was younger: I was a professional football and studying at university, but then I had a run of four seasons in a row with serious injuries and I lost direction. He dragged me by the ear down to the police station and I passed all the tests but I was colour blind. The thought of being a father myself always intimidated because I didn't think I could emulate what he had done for me. I could never be what he was."

In January, at the age of 82, Gould's father passed away after battling dementia for 10 years.

"I haven't had time to deal with it, no," he says. "A lot of families go through this but until you do you don't have an appreciation of how painful that is for everybody. I said goodbye to Dad three years ago when he could still communicate. I wanted to say those things to him.

"It's not just Dad, it's Mum. They've been together since they were at high school. Dad was 82. When he passed away in January, there was a sense of relief because I didn't like seeing him the way he was and him living where he was and the drain on Mum.

"But no doubt there's an unbelievable sense of loss, which I've dealt with in my own way because I've had an extremely busy off-season: a new coach, new management, a new season to prepare for …"

His health is always a great sense of gossip around the game. Even those closest to him never know entirely what's going on. On that note, though, Gould reports he's OK.

"I've got some things I need to get fixed, that will come with less workload and stepping back," he says. "There's no doubt there are some things I have to address but I don't want to talk about all that. I really haven't had time to deal with it. I'm not making myself out to be a soldier, not by any stretch. I've just pushed through and kept going but it's time I fix that stuff up."

Panther pride: Mark Geyer and Greg Alexander after the 1991 grand final over Canberra. Credit: Palani Mohan

Gould took on the job at the Panthers with the mandate from the club's frustrated board to nurse through a new coach. If only it was that simple.

The decision had already been made to sack Matt Elliott, and Gould was expected to advise and mentor a new, young coach as he'd done with Ricky Stuart at the Roosters in 2002.

Within days, it became clear the job was much larger. The Leagues Club was $100 million in debt and going backwards. Investment in the football program had been reduced to bare essentials only. There had been no development or recruitment strategy for many years. The salary cap was a mess and there was no "Panther" culture in the place.

Gould went home one night and bluntly said to his wife, June: "I don't think I can fix all this".

Because of his profile, Gould also became the face of rugby league's battle for hearts and minds and membership and merchandise with Greater Western Sydney, the newly created AFL franchise that had truckloads of money behind it and an Energizer Bunny public relations figure called Kevin Sheedy.

It remains fertile battleground – it's estimated Western Sydney will have a similar population as Brisbane within 10 years – and it's a long way off being won.

"As soon as I signed with Penrith, someone wanted to make out this was rugby league fighting back against GWS and Kevin Sheedy … I was never there to do that. When I got there though there was no doubt rugby league and the Panthers was way off the pace and that was something we had to get right. Two of our biggest challenges were the rise of the Western Sydney Wanderers and GWS. It wasn't about beating those other codes, it was about making sure rugby league didn't let this heartland area down.

"I said to the NRL, 'You need to tell me what you want the rugby league franchise that looks after junior talent from Blacktown to Katoomba to look like'.

Upset: the Panthers celebrate during the dramatic finals win over the Roosters in 2014.Credit: Getty Images

"It was hard getting people's head around the real live challenge that was there – and still exists today. If Panthers was defenseless, then rugby league was defenceless, because Panthers is the only organisation capable of looking after this area. The administration of the day never fully understood Penrith's role in it. I said, 'If you're going to leave the fight just to Penrith, you are going to lose the west. You need to invest in Penrith and Western Sydney'.

"To be honest, I don't think we've had that support. I still don't think the commission has genuinely got its head around what's needed out there. I don't think they understand the job Penrith has done out there. I'm still hoping they understand and come to the party. Everything Penrith has done so far, it's done for itself."

And that includes the tough decisions.

Early on, Gould nudged senior players Luke Lewis, Petero Civoniceva and Michael Jennings out the door. In came some older heads who weren't going to inspire the side to a premiership but could be relied on as the club held back and protected some of the best junior talent in the game.

In time, more came on board. Dean Whare, James Segeyaro, Lewis Brown and Sika Manu were signed.

"We paid a premium for those players because they took a gamble to come to Penrith at that time," Gould says.

Then came more: Jamie Soward, Peter Wallace, Elijah Talyor, Jamal Idris, Brent Kite …

The club shocked everyone when they made the top four in 2014 and then came within one win of reaching the grand final.

"It was too early for us," he says. "We weren't really ready for that. It thrust our young players into the limelight a little too early, and that increased player values and managing the salary cap."

Gould's approach allowed the club to nurture the booming talent that represent the Panthers' future.

The club has won two of the last three under-20s titles. Their 2016 side leads the competition. Their SG Ball team just won the national title. Earlier this month, they had five players in the Junior Kangaroos and Junior Kiwis match. They had six youngsters in the City-Country clash. Dallin Watene-Zelezniak debuted for the Kiwis. On Monday, Matt Moylan, Josh Mansour and Bryce Cartwright are expected to be named in the NSW side for Origin I.

There have been casualties along the way. Gould told Ivan Cleary when he arrived at Penrith from the Warriors that he didn't care if the side ran last for two years, as long as he gave it culture and pride.

Late last year, he sat the coach down and told him his time was up.

"While it was difficult for me and a heartbreaking decision, in my own mind I believed it was the right thing: for the club and for Ivan," Gould says. "It was just time. I wish he could've gone on longer, because he did a lot of great things for our club during that really tough period. He's a great coach and a wonderful person. But I knew in my heart it was the right call for his career and for Panthers. They're the decisions I've seen other clubs not make at various times and paid a price in the long run. We just had to do it. It was my decision."

As Gould steps back from the frontline at Panthers, the parallels with 1991 are too tantalising to ignore.

"Back in then, we had a theme about Penrith wanting to be somebody," he says. "There was an element of Penrith coming of age as a football club."

They also did it with a bunch of old weights Gould had in his back shed. Five players used them that season and four went on the Kangaroo tour that year.

Cut to the massive state-of-the-art sandstone building behind the Panthers Leagues Club, with cameras in the lights of the training field and a weights room the size of a footy field.

"This [is] a tough club, mate," he says. "And it's shown a lot of toughness in the last five years. Nobody here uses a bundy clock. They're here because they love it."

He says it again.

"That's what makes a club: the people."