Now i absolutely can not stand The Pirate Fitzsimons but this i did enjoy reading.
The Phil Gould thing?
So many points, so little time.
The first one is: I TOLD yers! And I really did, in this very space. Back in April, when the whole Lachlan Galvin imbroglio blew up at the Tigers, Gould very publicly said: “We are not involved in the Lachlan Galvin discussion and we won’t be involved in the Lachlan Galvin discussion. We wish him all the best.”
I reported those words in TFF, but added, “Maybe. But with that promise and $5, I could get a cappuccino.” My point was that when it comes to masterful Machiavellian manoeuvring, Gould’s entire track record is reminiscent of what an Australian expat once said to me as we approached a roundabout in Port Moresby, and he was talking about how things were different up there.
“You see that truck with its left blinker on?” he said. “What do you think that means?”
“It’s going to turn left?”
“No.”
“It’s going to turn right?”
“No.”
The truck sailed through, straight ahead, right in front of us.
“It means, it’s got its left blinker on.”
Thus, when Gould said that, it was of mild note, perhaps, but it was Gould, and there is a track record of what he says about his own club’s machinations not having a whole lot to do with what eventually happens.
Remember back in 2022?
“Trent Barrett will be the coach of the Bulldogs long after I’m gone,” he said.
Two weeks later, Barrett was gone. In similar fashion, he said Anthony Griffin’s job at Penrith was safe – just before he was let go, too.
Last year, Gould made flat-out denials that the Bulldogs had any interest in the Knights forward Leo Thompson, shortly before Kiwi international signed a four-year deal.
Last year, Gould also denied reports in the media that Sitili Tupouniua had been signed by the club, but wouldn’t you know it – just a week later, a four-year deal was confirmed.
Then there are the “secret meetings”, where over the years Gould has shown up in grainy photos confirming his meetings with this player or that agent – it always being a matter of curiosity to me that such secret meetings have been held in public places. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear that, for reasons of his own, Gould
wanted those meetings known, as if, you know, he was a master media manipulator.
All of that is why I didn’t take Gould seriously when he said in April that his cashed-up club – which needed a brilliant playmaker of Galvin’s ilk – actually had no interest in him.
And whaddya know? This week, they signed him up.
Gould’s explanation for his volte-face was a classic of the genre.
“What happened this week,” he said, “is the goalpost got moved incredibly, because all of a sudden we got a call on Tuesday from [his] manager [Isaac Moses] to say that there was a chance they were negotiating a release with the Tigers, and he would be available virtually now.”
See? It was a complete rewriting of history. Gould would have you believe that back in April, it wasn’t in the air that Galvin might leave the club immediately, which is complete and utter nonsense. At the time, he said the situation with Galvin and the Tigers was “untenable,” which it clearly was. But now he says he really thought Galvin was locked up till the end of next year. I call bullshit.
And I say that when Gould is speaking about the intentions of his club, it means only that Gould is speaking about the intentions of his club. No more, and no less. If it actually reflects what those intentions
are, I take it as a coincidence.
Now, when my colleague Michael Chammas more politely called him on his most recent about-face on
100% Footy on Monday night, Gould had the hide, the absolute
hide, to turn nasty, attack Chammas and the media, saying “most of our issues are created by the gibber in the media ... You say a lot of things that just aren’t true. You say a lot of things that are exaggerated. You exaggerate what’s going on and that makes it difficult for us.”
Cry me a river, Phil! And he did.
“What I do know,” Gould added, “is there is not another CEO, not another general manager or recruitment manager that has to sit on a panel and answer these questions.”
Phil, you’re breaking our heart! Are you on that panel at the point of a gun, or because you are being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to be there?
No, Phil. You mind your words. Your constant attacks on the media ... are tedious and insulting.
And you want to whinge about having to answer questions about having told obvious porky-pies?
He even told Chammas to, get this, “mind your words, son”.
No, Phil. You mind
your words. Your constant attacks on the very media that you have been a leading part of for three or four decades are tedious and insulting. They might wash if you had an unending record of telling the truth, come what may, but you don’t.
Chammas was careful to say, “I am not questioning your credibility”. Well, I certainly am. In the realms of complaining about mistruths being published in the media, you don’t have any credibility, Phil.
Pull your head in. Son.
