Leaving Gus is thinking Cleary now
HE’S the coach Phil Gould wanted against the coach Penrith ended up with.
Ivan Cleary goes head to head with Wayne Bennett when Penrith host South Sydney in what will be another anticipated NRL contest tonight.
It was seven-time premiership-winning coach Bennett who Gould is believed to have delivered when the Panthers were on the hunt last August.
However, Gould was overruled by the club chairman and, eight months on, the Panthers supremo has made his job redundant.
“Wayne Bennett’s like the godfather of coaching,” Cleary said a month ago. “He’s probably got the greatest record of any coach. The fact that I’m mentioned in the same sentence, I’m pretty happy.”
Cleary, who was sacked by Gould in his first stint at Penrith in 2015, went to great lengths to deny any fallout between the pair yesterday.
And even though he wasn’t Gould’s first choice, Cleary expected to be working under Gould for a long time.
“I probably did,” he said. “(Did Gould leaving) surprise me? Yes it did, and it didn’t.
“I’ve got to be honest, it feels a bit surreal because he has been talking about it for a long time. He’s always said that it was going to happen.”