Legendary rugby league coach Phil Gould has shot down Ivan Cleary‘s gruff call of Wayne Bennett trying to “manipulate” the referees department during the lead-up to the finals.
The verbal stoush between Panthers coach Cleary and Rabbitohs mentor Bennett roared back to life following South Sydney’s tense qualifying final win over Penrith on Saturday night.
Cleary had discovered that, after the mid-August Panthers-Rabbitohs clash, Bennett approached the referees department, claiming Penrith had used block plays to protect halfback Nathan Cleary.
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The Penrith coach hit back in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald last week, accusing South Sydney defenders of launching illegal assaults on the star playmaker.
But Cleary saved his most explosive ammunition for his media conference after his side’s qualifying final defeat, claiming Bennett had tried to “manipulate” referees in his private meeting.
Bennett struck back in his media conference, defending his approach to the referees department and slamming Cleary for exposing the dialogue to the public.
In response to Cleary’s inflammatory call, Gould revealed his standpoint on Nine’s 100% Footy, saying coaches speaking with the referees department is nothing new and that coaches should be doing it.
“This has been going on since Adam played,” Gould said.
“Coaches getting to referee bosses or referees during the week to get explanation of what happened before …
“There were some old masters back in the day and they’d all say … So if they were playing the Panthers this week (they’d be saying), ‘Look at what they’ve been doing previous weeks and you’re letting them get away with this’, ‘Look what you’re doing’, ‘Look what you’re doing with this’, ‘Well you’ve got to be pulling this up’.
“And what Ivan said after the game was that a number of his players were chipped on the run: ‘Watch this, watch this, watch this’.
“So someone’s worded them up, someone’s worded the referee up, which could have come out of the Bennett presentation to the referee, which he admits that he did three weeks ago.
“But they all do it, everyone does it. If you’re not doing it you’re not competitive.”
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Another layer to the saga is the mysterious leak to Cleary, which former Sharks captain Paul Gallen has weighed in on.
“I suppose if you’re going to the NRL as a coach … then it should be confidential,” Gallen said.
But he backed up his view with reality.
“I don’t think there’s too much that goes to the NRL that’s not leaked.”
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