Penrith General Manager Phil Gould has confirmed he and South Sydney coach Wayne Bennett had a handshake deal in place back when Bennett was the coach of the Broncos.
With the Panthers on the lookout for a new coach, Gould confirmed to Nine's 100% Footy he had agreed with Bennett to come on board and take over from Anthony Griffin before he was aware of Ivan Cleary's impending arrival.
"Wayne and I were never going to talk about it because it all happened very, very quickly," Gould said on Monday night.
"The Cleary thing bobbed up out of nowhere.
"I met with Wayne and I recommended him to the Panthers but the Ivan thing had come up in the background and I had to ring him up and say we were 'no go'.
"It didn't take too long – it was good – and we moved on with the Ivan thing."
With Gould locking in a secret handshake deal with Bennett and Panthers chairman Dave O'Neill chasing Cleary, it seems as though the two Penrith big wigs were on different pages.
However, Gould believes the pair don't have any communication problems, and just said they weren't aware of the other's plans.
"I don't think there was any miscommunication," Gould said.
"I don't think either of us anticipated what one another was doing.
"It was always my intention for Anthony Griffin to see out the season – that was always my intention.
"It just got to the point with the management and with the board where we were going to move on the following year.
"We had thoughts and discussions about what that may be and that was a discussion I had with Wayne.
"He and I just said we would never talk about it but now he has left the Broncos and gone to Souths ... we have a great coach here in Ivan Cleary."
Penrith has started the season 1-2 and face Wests Tigers on Friday night.
ahahahahaha😁😆😂🤣😂😆😁😆😂🤣 Bennett and his hand shake deals. The old f.a.r.t reneged on a hand shake deal with Nick Politis way back about 10 years ago. Thank God. Good one Phil Gould, You gave him a bit of the old karma treatment.😁😆😂🤣😂😆🤣
Is anyone else sick of Bennett. Like an episode of Home and Away. No one cares.
I would pay to see Bennett & Gould working together!
old man bennett at the riff lol. He would look funny in flannelette & uggboots.
Duckman karmas coming, EASTERN BUNNIES girl fren baaaaaa doomed , the premiers with the second worst memberships behind Manly who have had a horrible 3 years , you’ll be last soon on memberships especially if Manly put in a good year, welcome to the burrow , even uncle has accepted your Finished
RABBITHOS 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
There you go again woodpecker commenting on Souths, if you read what actually happened, this deal was done mid last year way before the Seibold to Bronco’s thing, and thank god he knocked back Polites, his career would have been ruined if he had gone there, the way Polites went through coaches then, it WAS a transit lounge.
Mate just keep your useless opinions on Souths to yourself and Russ, same thing.
Your a dreamer Souff Olympic Park bunny, soufffths exaggerated memberships of 28 thousand was proven false on their first home game this weekend just gone, when the wanna be Souffths, located in the Western Suburbs and are now relocated as the Olympic Park bunnies, attracted a third of their so called membership with another exaggerated crowd claimed of just over 10,000 when we all saw there was lucky to be 5000.
On the other hand the Roosters fans on their only home crowd this year attracted 24 500 in the rain for their home game. Get your facts right Dreamer😂😆😁🤣🤣😁😆😂😂😆😁🤣😁😆🤣🤣😂😆😁🤣🤣💪🐔👍
Home Crowd Average for 2019 Sydney Roosters 24,500 – soufffths or better known as the Olympic Park Bunnies 10,000 🤣😁😆😂😆baaaaaa😁🤣🤣😁😆baaaaaa😂😆😁🤣😁baaaaaa😆😂😆😁🤣baaaaaa
With a woolen handled walking stick😁
This story shows how wrong all of those Tigers & other supporters were about the move of Ivan Cleary. They were all saying at the time , how it was Gould who lured Ivan Cleary back to Penrith. That couldn’t be more Wrong.
This divorce case is getting messy damn
Listen idiot, Easts first home game crowd was made up of souths supporters, the commentators said has much at the time, souths had over 75% of the crowd, then Parra and Easts only attracted 13,500 people where souths had a tick over 10,000 playing a out of town team not known for their supporters.
Souths are the most supported team in the world bar none, your mob are a disgrace when it comes to memberships and supporters, your just jealous thats all pecker just jealous.
Just another story with Phil Gould trying to convince everyone how smart he is.
After last years circus the facade is well & truly destroyed