Major Player: Phil “Gus” Gould AM

Phil “Gus” Gould
Image: Panthers 2016 Annual Report

Philip Ronald Gould AM

Few individuals have made a greater contribution to Australian rugby league, or played as many different roles within the game, as Phil “Gus” Gould. Player, captain, premiership-winning coach, State of Origin coach, football administrator and commentator, Gould has been one of rugby league’s most influential — and occasionally controversial — figures for almost five decades.

His relationship with Penrith Panthers has been particularly remarkable. Beginning his first-grade career at the club in the 1970s, he returned as coach in 1990 and guided Penrith to its first Grand Final and, a year later, its first premiership. Almost two decades after leaving, he returned again to help rebuild the club’s football operations, contributing to the foundations of another extraordinary period of success.

Yet Gould’s significance to the Panthers story extends beyond those achievements. His arrival as coach coincided with the culmination of years of investment in junior development, football administration and organisational reform. His success demonstrated what could be achieved when an exceptional coach inherited a club increasingly capable of supporting his ambitions.

His subsequent departure in 1994, following a difficult period for the football club, also provides an insight into the challenges that accompanied Penrith’s transition towards a more professional football operation.

Across three distinct periods, Gould was both a participant in and an important influence upon the transformation of Panthers. His story illustrates not only the impact of individual leadership, but also the importance of the organisational foundations upon which sporting success depends.

Role in the Narrative

Gould’s importance to Panthers, Passion & Politics centres on his return to Penrith as first-grade coach in 1990 and his role in converting the club’s growing football strength into its first premiership.

His coaching career began at Canterbury in 1988, where he won a premiership in his first season as a first-grade coach. The achievement immediately established him as one of the game’s outstanding emerging coaches.

His departure from Canterbury at the end of 1989 created an opportunity for Penrith.

The Panthers had already undergone a remarkable transformation. Tim Sheens had helped establish a new football culture and taken the club into its first finals series in 1985. Ron Willey had subsequently strengthened the team’s competitiveness and resilience, taking Penrith back to the finals in 1988.

A generation of talented young footballers had emerged through the club’s junior development system, while organisational and financial reforms had created a stronger foundation for the football operation.

Penrith was no longer a club struggling merely to compete. It was approaching the point where winning a premiership had become a realistic ambition.

Gould’s appointment was nevertheless far from inevitable. Roger Cowan and the Panthers Board considered other coaching possibilities, and Gould’s departure from Canterbury attracted considerable public attention.

The circumstances surrounding his recruitment, including the proposed arrangement involving Steve Mortimer and the discussions that eventually led to his appointment, are examined separately in Bringing Phil Gould Back to Penrith.

What made Gould’s appointment so significant was the convergence of two developments: a coach with an exceptional understanding of the game and a club whose long-term investment in junior development, organisational reform and football infrastructure had brought it within reach of a premiership. Gould possessed the skills to capitalise on that opportunity.

Gould introduced an uncompromising approach to preparation, fitness, discipline and selection. Players were expected to meet demanding standards, regardless of their experience or reputation.

His approach was not always comfortable. Some decisions, particularly those involving established senior players, caused considerable controversy.

But Gould was prepared to challenge existing practices if he believed doing so would improve the team’s prospects.

In 1990, Penrith reached its first Grand Final, losing to Canberra. Twelve months later, the Panthers returned to face the same opponents and won the club’s first premiership.

The achievement secured Gould an enduring place in Panthers history.

Unlike his predecessors, Gould arrived at a time when Penrith possessed many of the essential ingredients for success. His achievement was to convert their potential and take the football team to a level it had never previously reached.

Background

Gould played junior rugby league with Wentworthville before joining Penrith in 1976.

He came off-the-bench to make his first-grade debut on July 18, 1976 at Penrith Park against the Balmain Tigers before a crowd of 8,879 — Penrith lost 5-12, with Gould kicking a goal from two attempts.

On 7 May 1978, he became Penrith’s first-grade captain. At just 20 years of age he was the youngest player to captain the Club — and the second youngest in the history of the game in Australia.¹ This was a considerable responsibility for a young player at a club still struggling to establish itself in the Sydney competition. The Panthers defeated Eastern Suburbs 15–13 in his first match as captain.

Significantly, this game had an impact on Gould that would resonate through his coaching career. See Beyond the Book — The Mental Game — Roger, Gus and an Idea Ahead of its Time.

His playing career was subsequently disrupted by injuries, including a serious eye problem (detached retina) that threatened his future in the game. Nevertheless, he developed a reputation as an intelligent, tactically aware forward whose understanding of rugby league extended beyond his own playing position.

After leaving Penrith, Gould played with Newtown, Canterbury and South Sydney. These experiences brought him into contact with coaches and football cultures that would profoundly influence his own approach to the game.

Particularly important was his association with Warren Ryan, first at Newtown and later at Canterbury. Ryan’s emphasis on defensive organisation, tactical preparation and disciplined team structures helped shape Gould’s understanding of what was required to win at the highest level.

By the time Gould’s playing career ended in 1986, he had already developed many of the qualities that would distinguish him as a coach.

Profession: Rugby League player, Coach, Administrator, Commentator

Panthers Involvement
• First Grade Player (1976 – 1980)
• Penrith First-Grade Captain — First Appointed 1978
• Head Coach (1990-1994)
• General Manager (Rugby League) (2011-2019)

Representative Honours
• NSW State of Origin — Coach (24 games)

Major Honours
• 1988 — Dally M Coach of the Year
• 1988, 1991 — NSWRL Premiership (Coach)
• 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 2003, 2004 State of Origin Series Winning Coach
• 2014 Member of the Order of Australia (AM)
• 2015 Life Member Panthers

Relevance to Events Described

A different kind of football leadership

Gould’s influence extended beyond match-day tactics.

He brought a highly structured approach to coaching, emphasising preparation, physical conditioning, defensive organisation and the education of players in their individual and collective responsibilities.

Royce Simmons, reflecting on the changes introduced in 1990 in Hooked on League, described the arrival of specialist weight coaches, increased opportunities for players to train, and a more structured approach to how the team played.

These developments coincided with rugby league’s gradual transition towards greater professionalism.

Gould also demonstrated a willingness to make difficult selection decisions. His handling of Simmons during the 1990 season became one of the most prominent examples.

Such decisions were controversial, but they reflected Gould’s determination to establish standards that applied throughout the playing group. As Simmons reflected,

I can see now that it must have been very hard for ‘Gus’ —a guy who was not that much older than me, to tell a player in his testimonial year at Penrith, the club’s first Australian rep and club captain for nine seasons, that he had been dropped.²

The result was a team capable not only of competing with the strongest clubs but of defeating them when the stakes were highest.

The first premiership

The 1991 premiership was the defining achievement of Gould’s first period at Penrith.

It was also the culmination of a much longer organisational journey.

The football team included players whose development stretched back through the reforms of the early and mid-1980s, among them Greg Alexander, John Cartwright, Brad Fittler, Mark Geyer and Royce Simmons.

Gould built a disciplined and increasingly sophisticated football system, giving the talented group of players the greatest chance to shine.

His contribution was decisive, but it was not made in isolation.

The premiership belonged to the players, coaches, administrators, directors, staff and supporters whose combined efforts had helped bring Penrith to that point.

After the Premiership

The triumph of 1991 was followed by a far more difficult period for Penrith and its premiership-winning coach.

The death of Ben Alexander in June 1992 had a profound effect on the club, particularly on his brother Greg and other members of the playing group. The tragedy occurred at a time when Panthers were already experiencing difficulties involving injuries, player relationships, morale and performance.

Internal reports prepared by Panthers Chief Executive Don Feltis during 1992 and 1993 reveal the extent of those concerns. They describe a football operation struggling to maintain the cohesion and confidence that had contributed to its premiership success.

The circumstances confronting Gould were very different from those he had encountered during the premiership campaigns of 1990 and 1991. Relationships within the playing group had become increasingly complicated, while injuries and the loss of experienced players placed additional pressure on the team.

Yet the contemporary documents also demonstrate that the club’s difficulties could not reasonably be attributed to its coach alone.

In a detailed report to Feltis and the Board in August 1993, Gould acknowledged the team’s disappointing performances and accepted responsibility for aspects of the season. He also identified the impact of injuries, the emotional consequences of Ben Alexander’s death, problems involving individual players and the challenges of developing sufficient depth within the playing squad.

Gould’s assessment of Greg Alexander was particularly revealing. While describing him as the greatest player to have represented Panthers, Gould acknowledged the profound effect of Ben’s death and expressed concern about the difficulties Alexander was experiencing. His observations illustrated both the personal complexities confronting the playing group and the challenge of restoring the confidence and cohesion that had characterised the premiership-winning team.

His report reflected both frustration with the team’s performances and confidence in the younger players emerging through the club’s development system.

At the same time, Panthers were confronting broader organisational challenges. The increasing financial demands of professional rugby league, particularly player recruitment and retention, were placing pressure on the club’s resources and administrative arrangements.

Correspondence between Feltis and Roger Cowan during 1993 and 1994 reveals differences in their approaches to management, responsibility and the relationship between rugby league operations and the wider Panthers organisation. Those disagreements formed part of the environment in which Gould worked, although it is unknown how much impact it had on Gould.

Despite the difficulties, Gould remained one of the game’s most highly regarded coaches. He had also taken charge of New South Wales in State of Origin football, further enhancing his standing beyond Penrith.

In July 1994, Gould announced his departure from Panthers to take up the coaching position at Eastern Suburbs.

Contemporary newspaper reports indicate that Eastern Suburbs had pursued Gould as part of an ambitious effort to strengthen its football operation. However, his departure followed a period of increasingly strained relationships and uncertainty about his future at Penrith. Gould publicly stated that he would have left the club even without the Eastern Suburbs opportunity, suggesting that his decision involved more than simply accepting another coaching appointment.³

His departure brought to an end a remarkable five-year coaching association with Panthers — one that had delivered the club’s first Grand Final appearance and its first premiership, but had also encompassed some of the most difficult circumstances faced by the football operation in its history.

Whatever the complexities surrounding his departure, Gould’s contribution to Penrith’s breakthrough success remained undiminished.

A wider influence on rugby league

Gould’s influence on the game continued long after his departure from Penrith.

He continued with coaching New South Wales in the State of Origin series adding victories in 1996, 2003 and 2004. At the Sydney Roosters, his years as both coach and coaching director were significant in their development as a leadin rugby league organisation.

He also became one of the game’s most prominent commentators, developing a reputation for strong opinions about coaching, administration and the direction of rugby league.

In 2014, Gould was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to rugby league as an administrator, commentator, coach and player, and to the community.

A Second Return to Penrith⁴

In 2011, Gould returned to Penrith in a senior football management role, beginning a third significant period of involvement with the club.

Panthers were confronting substantial financial and football challenges. Gould became a central figure in efforts to restructure football operations, strengthen junior development and recruitment pathways, and establish a more sustainable approach to building competitive teams.

His work formed part of a broader period of organisational and financial restructuring, during which the club sought to address longstanding problems and create the foundations for renewed success.

The results were not immediate. However, the changes introduced during this period contributed to the development of the football operation that would subsequently achieve unprecedented success.

Gould departed Panthers in 2019, before the club’s remarkable run of premiership victories began. Nevertheless, his contribution to the rebuilding process remains an important part of his legacy.

He subsequently held football administration roles with other NRL clubs, including Canterbury-Bankstown.

Significance to Panthers

Phil Gould occupies a distinctive place in Penrith’s history.

His involvement in the club covering such different stages of its development is unique — as a young player during its early struggles, as the coach who delivered its first premiership, and later as an administrator during another major period of rebuilding.

His contribution to the 1991 premiership was immense.

But understanding that achievement requires recognising the work that preceded it.

Tim Sheens helped transform the football culture. Ron Willey consolidated the team’s competitiveness. The club’s junior development system produced an exceptional generation of players. Roger Cowan, successive Boards and many others built the organisational capacity needed to sustain a successful football operation.

Gould arrived when those developments had begun to converge.

His subsequent departure in 1994, following a difficult period for the club, demonstrated that even the most successful sporting relationships can be affected by changing circumstances.

Yet Gould’s connection with Panthers did not end there. His return in 2011 placed him at the centre of another significant period of football development and rebuilding.

Across three distinct periods, Gould contributed to Penrith’s evolution from a struggling club into one of rugby league’s most successful organisations.

His achievements, particularly the breakthrough premiership of 1991, secure his place among the most significant figures in Panthers history.

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Editorial Note

This profile is presented as contextual background.
Additional material may be introduced as the narrative progresses.

The youngest captain in history is Dave Brown who was appointed captain of the Eastern Suburbs Roosters for the start of the 1932 Season. His first game as capatin was against the North Sydney Bears on Saturday 16^th April 1932 — it was just 12 days after his 19^th birthday (4 April). Easts won 15-7. The third youngest captain was Bob Fulton for Manly-Warringah.
↩︎
Hooked on League: Royce Simmons with Alan Whiticker published 2001. p. 42.
↩︎
See Steve Mascord, “I Would Have Left Panthers Anyway — Gus”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 20 July 1994, and Daniel Williams, “Panthers Under Siege”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 July 1994. The reports describe tensions within the football operation and uncertainty surrounding Gould’s future. Gould maintained that his decision to leave was not dependent on receiving an offer from Eastern Suburbs.
↩︎
This period is outside the era covered by Panthers, Passion & Politics. The impact of Gould during this period will undoubtedly be covered in detail by a future Panther historian
↩︎

Major Player: Greg “Brandy” Alexander

Greg “Brandy” Alexander

Player, Premiership Captain, Director, Commentator

Not many individuals connect the different eras of the Panthers story as completely as Greg Brandy Alexander.

He emerged from the Penrith district as one of the most gifted footballers the club had produced, became its first premiership-winning captain, represented New South Wales and Australia, and eventually returned to Panthers in another capacity — as a director.

His playing career coincided with the period in which Penrith finally moved from being an occasional contender to one of rugby league’s leading clubs. More than a decade later, his election to the Board placed him inside an entirely different Panthers story: the bitter struggle over governance and direction that forms an important part of Panthers, Passion & Politics.

Those two roles — player and director — make Alexander a significant figure in the narrative for quite different reasons.

Role in the Narrative

Greg Alexander represents perhaps the clearest footballing expression of the transformation Panthers had been attempting since the early 1980s.

The changes begun during that period were not simply about finding better first-grade players. They involved restructuring the relationship between the Football Club and the licensed club, improving coaching and development systems, and placing much greater emphasis on producing elite footballers from the enormous junior base available to Penrith.

Alexander became one of the clearest demonstrations of what that emerging system could produce.

By the time Penrith reached its first Grand Final in 1990 and won its first premiership the following year, he had become both captain and one of the most recognisable players in Australian rugby league.

His importance to Panthers, Passion & Politics, however, extends beyond the playing field.

Eleven years after lifting the premiership trophy, Alexander stood for election to the Panthers Board during the bitter 2002 election campaign. His election therefore provides an unusual bridge between the footballing rise of the 1980s and early 1990s and the governance conflicts that dominate the later chapters of the book.

Background

Gregory Peter Stephen Alexander was born in Penrith on 4 March 1965 and grew up in the district. He attended St Dominic’s College before completing his schooling at Patrician Brothers’ College, Fairfield, and represented the Australian Schoolboys in 1983.

His emergence was immediate.

Alexander was both Penrith’s and the Dally M Rookie of the Year in 1984. A year later, still only in his second season of first grade, he won the Dally M Player of the Year, Dally M Halfback of the Year and Penrith’s Player of the Year award in 1990.

His emergence coincided almost exactly with a fundamental change in the way Panthers approached football.

The move to the Mulgoa Road complex and the adoption of a unified approach to the licensed club and football operations were accompanied by a deliberate effort to develop elite players from Penrith’s junior system. Alexander became compelling evidence that the district could produce players capable not merely of playing first grade, but of competing at the highest levels of the game.

In 1986 Alexander and Royce Simmons became the first Penrith players selected for a Kangaroo Tour. Alexander subsequently represented New South Wales and Australia and developed into one of the outstanding attacking players of his generation.

By the end of the decade, Penrith itself was changing around him.

Tim Sheens had helped rebuild the football operation and Ron Willey consolidated that progress, while players including Alexander, Simmons, John Cartwright, Mark Geyer, Brad Izzard and the emerging Brad Fittler gave the club a playing strength it had rarely possessed before.

When Phil Gould arrived as coach in 1990, he therefore inherited a very different football operation from the one Sheens had encountered earlier in the decade. The foundations were already there. Gould provided the standards, preparation and tactical discipline that helped take the team the final step.

Profession: Rugby League player, Media Commentator; Director

Panthers Involvement
• First Grade Player (1984-94; 1997-99)
• Premiership-winning Captain (1991)
• Director (2002-current)

Representative Honours
• Australian Schoolboys (1983)
• NSW State of Origin (6 games)
• NSW Super League Tri-Series (1997)
• Australia (6 Test matches)

Major Honours
• 1984 — Dally M Rookie of the Year
• 1984 — Panthers Rookie of the Year
• 1985 — Dally M Player of the Year
• 1985, 1989, 1991 — Dally M Halfback of the Year
• 1985, 1990 — Panthers Player of the Year (renamed Merv Cartwright Medal)
• 1991 — NSWRL Premiership winning Captain
• 2000 — Australian Sports Medal
• 2001 — Panthers Life Membership
• 2006 — Panthers Team of Legends
• 2016 — Inaugural Inductee, Panthers Hall of Fame

Relevance to Events Described

Alexander captained Penrith into previously unexplored territory.

In 1990 the Panthers reached their first Grand Final, losing 18–14 to Canberra. Twelve months later the same clubs met again.

This time Penrith won.

Alexander’s contribution to the 1991 Grand Final was characteristic of the player he had become. His second-half kicking game helped turn the match, including a long-range field goal that put Penrith ahead, before his sideline conversion of Royce Simmons’ late try helped seal the club’s first premiership.

Yet Alexander’s significance was greater than his performance in one match.

The premiership represented the culmination of changes that had taken place over many years. Penrith had developed from a club hoping to compete into one capable of producing its own international players and ultimately its own premiership-winning captain.

Alexander stood at the centre of that transformation.

What followed gave the story a profoundly different dimension.

In June 1992, Greg’s younger brother and Panthers teammate Ben Alexander was killed in a motor vehicle accident. Greg had already been sidelined by a knee injury and returned only later in the season. The loss had a deep impact on Greg personally, the Panthers playing group, the entire Panthers staff, and the wider community.

The full story of Ben Alexander belongs elsewhere in Beyond the Book. Within Greg’s profile it is enough to recognise that the tragedy became inseparable from the years that followed.

Alexander eventually left Penrith for the newly established Auckland Warriors, spending two seasons there before returning to the Panthers in 1997. He remained until his retirement in 1999. Across his two periods with Penrith he played 228 first-grade matches and scored 1,100 points.

Retirement did not end his association with Panthers.

In 2002 Alexander nominated for the Football Club Board at a time when the organisation was deeply divided. His candidacy would subsequently become associated with the group of candidates commonly described as the “management ticket”, but Alexander himself presented his nomination rather differently.

Alexander had told the Penrith Press that he had been considering standing for the Board for three years, since retiring from football, and wanted to give something back to the club. He also spoke positively of Roger Cowan’s contribution to Panthers. In a subsequent interview with the Western Weekender, Alexander acknowledged speculation about whose election “ticket” he might be running on, but said he had given it little thought. He wanted to be regarded as his “own man”, elected on merit, and said that decisions coming before the Board should be assessed individually.

Alexander also circulated his own recommended group of candidates. Significantly, it did not simply reproduce either of the principal groupings contesting the election. Among those he recommended was John Bateman, one of the five sitting directors whose conflict with senior management lay at the centre of the Board dispute. The issue later arose during the Temby Inquiry, when Alexander said that Rob Weaver had assisted him with the wording accompanying that recommendation.

Alexander topped the poll.

The election was subsequently examined closely by Ian Temby QC, particularly the extent to which senior management had become involved in determining the composition of the Board to which management itself was accountable. When Temby put that governance problem directly to Alexander, Alexander accepted the difficulty.

The episode placed Alexander in a very different Panthers environment from the one in which he had first become prominent.

The premiership captain had become a director.

The questions were no longer about football tactics, leadership on the field or winning Grand Finals. They were about accountability, organisational authority and the relationship between management and the Board.

Alexander’s relationships within Panthers also extended well beyond the Boardroom. Glenn Matthews later recalled that, when he decided to resign as Panthers CEO, Alexander was the only person outside his immediate family whom he told before announcing the decision to the Board. Matthews described a friendship stretching across virtually their entire adult lives.

Beyond Panthers, Alexander also established a substantial post-playing career in rugby league media, becoming a prominent television and radio commentator and analyst.

Legacy

Greg Alexander occupies a distinctive place in Panthers history.

There have been more premierships since 1991, more representative players and new generations of local juniors who have achieved things that once seemed almost unimaginable.

But somebody had to be first.

Alexander belonged to the generation that demonstrated what Penrith’s enormous junior base and increasingly sophisticated football system could produce. He became an Australian representative, an elite player and, ultimately, the captain who lifted the premiership trophy when Panthers won the competition for the first time.

That alone would secure his place in the club’s history.

Panthers subsequently recognised that contribution formally. Alexander was made a Life Member in 2001, selected at halfback in the club’s Team of Legends and, in 2016, became one of the four inaugural inductees into the Panthers Hall of Fame. He had also received the Australian Sports Medal in 2000.

His later service as a director adds another dimension. It connected one of the defining figures of Panthers’ first great football era with the difficult organisational period described in the later chapters of Panthers, Passion & Politics.

In that sense Alexander’s Panthers story spans an unusually wide arc.

He became the captain who helped vindicate it.

And years later, he became — and remains — one of those entrusted with helping govern the organisation it had helped create.

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Editorial Note

This profile is presented as contextual background.
Additional material may be introduced as the narrative progresses.

Major Player: Donald Feltis OAM

Donald George Feltis

Police Inspector, CEO Penrith Junior League, CEO PDRLFC, Director

Few people had an association with rugby league in Penrith that stretched as far across its history as Don Feltis.

As a young man, Feltis was there when volunteers began laying the foundations of the original Penrith Leagues Club in Station Street. Decades later, after serving as a player, coach, Junior League administrator, football executive and director, he became Chairman of Panthers.

That span alone makes Feltis an important figure in the Panthers story. The significance of his contribution lies less in the number of positions he occupied and more in the different eras of Penrith rugby league those positions allowed him to influence.

His most enduring and constructive contribution was probably made at the grassroots level — in the administration of the Penrith & Districts Junior Rugby League.

Later he moved into senior football administration as the football club CEO — he was in charge for the breakthrough 1991 premiership. He also had to guide the football club through the tragedy of Ben Alexander’s death and the years that followed, culminating in the mid-season departure of Phil Gould.

Feltis was elected to the Panthers Board in that controversial October 2002 election and, in 2009 took the chairmanship of the organisation. He remained in that chair until 2015 and faced some of the most difficult financial circumstances in its history.

It was a long contribution, and an important one. It was also more complicated than a simple record of positions held and honours received might suggest.

Role in the Narrative

Don Feltis appears at several quite different points in Panthers, Passion & Politics.

In the early history, he is a direct connection with the people who physically built the first licensed club. During the 1980s, he became an important part of the team recruited by Roger Cowan for the specific task of transforming Penrith’s approach to developing footballers. By 1991, he had moved into senior football administration as Penrith won its first premiership.

A decade later, Feltis appears again in very different circumstances.

In 2002 he was elected to the Football Club Board during the bitter struggle between Roger Cowan and the directors who became known as the Footy Five. The Temby Inquiry subsequently examined that election and the role played by Panthers management in attempting to influence its outcome. Feltis was among those elected.

His later career extended beyond the period covered by the original book. He became Panthers Chairman in 2009, held the position during the Group’s subsequent financial difficulties and restructuring, and was Chairman when Phil Gould returned to Penrith in 2011.

Feltis therefore connects several of the central themes running through the Panthers story: junior development, professionalisation, football success, organisational politics, governance, and financial pressure.

Background

A 2012 NSW Legislative Council tribute recorded that he began playing rugby league at age 14 and subsequently played for Penrith, St Marys and Richmond. His involvement expanded into coaching, including junior teams at Penrith, St Marys, Richmond and Emu Plains and district representative teams.

Rugby league initially ran alongside another long career.

Feltis joined the NSW Police Force in 1955 and served for more than three decades, eventually retiring at the rank of Inspector in 1986. His police postings included Penrith and other parts of western Sydney as well as country NSW. When he retired from the Police Force in 1986, rugby league became his full-time occupation.

Throughout those years in the Police Force, his involvement with Penrith rugby league continued.

One of his recollections preserved in the original manuscript reaches back to the construction of the first Penrith Leagues Club in Station Street. Feltis remembered joining other volunteers to help lay the foundations and recalled a character known as “Nobby” Hunter pre-empting a planned drawing of straws to determine who would break the ground by simply digging the first hole himself.

It is a small story, but an evocative one. Feltis’s Panthers involvement began in an era when the club was being built quite literally by its members and volunteers.

Feltis’s administrative involvement with the Penrith District Junior Rugby League eventually became one of the defining parts of his career.

The scale of that task can easily be underestimated. The Junior League was not simply an adjunct to the Panthers first-grade club or a mechanism for identifying talented young footballers. It administered rugby league across one of the largest junior districts in the game, extending from Blacktown in the east to Katoomba in the west and from the Hawkesbury in the north to Wallacia in the south.

Its responsibilities extended from the youngest children’s competitions through the various junior age divisions and into senior district football. Behind every season sat the less visible work of administering clubs, teams, registrations, competitions, rules, disputes, representative programs and the large volunteer network required to make community rugby league function.

From the 1980s he occupied a succession of senior positions within the Penrith Junior League, including president, vice-president, secretary-administrator and chief executive. Even after periods working in senior football administration, he returned to the Junior League and remained closely involved with its administration for many years. A 2014 parliamentary tribute described him as a “driving force” behind the Penrith Junior Rugby League since 1985.

It was a form of administration very different from running an NRL football operation. Its success was measured not primarily by premierships but by whether thousands of players could participate each week in properly organised competitions spread across a huge geographical area.

Feltis proved exceptionally capable at it.

Recognition & Awards
• Life Membership, Penrith & Districts Junior Rugby League Football Club (1994)
• Life Membership, Penrith Panthers (1995)
• City of Penrith, Wall of Achievement (1999)
• Australian Sports Medal (2000)
• Life Membership, New South Wales Rugby League (2006)
• Medal of the Order of Australia (2014)
• Don Feltis Cup — Penrith Junior League Sunday Division 1 Competitions. (2022)

Relevance to Events Described

Perhaps the most important part of Feltis’s contribution came during the transformation of Penrith’s football development program in the 1980s.

After years in which Penrith struggled to convert the enormous potential of its junior district into sustained first-grade success, Panthers began looking much more deliberately at how talented young players were identified, coached and retained.

One expression of that new thinking was the Five-by-Five program.

The objective was deliberately ambitious: within five years, Penrith wanted five locally developed players capable of representing Australia.

Feltis was one of the people involved in developing the strategies intended to make that possible.

Five-by-Five was not simply a prediction that Penrith’s enormous junior nursery would eventually produce outstanding players. It represented an attempt to create a system capable of turning that potential into elite footballers.

Feltis believed the exercise made Penrith considerably more professional and provided a platform for its future football operations.

The results that followed gave considerable weight to that assessment.

A generation containing players such as Greg Alexander, Mark Geyer, Brad Fittler and others emerged from the Penrith system. The club reached its first Grand Final in 1990 and won its first premiership in 1991.

Feltis had by then moved into senior football administration by then. Contemporary accounts variously describe his roles as coaching and development manager, Rugby League Manager and Chief Executive. The distinction is worth preserving: these were football administration roles rather than leadership of the much larger Panthers licensed-club group.

The NSW Parliament’s 2012 account describes Feltis as Panthers’ Rugby League Manager when the club won the 1991 Winfield Cup.

For Feltis, who had spent so much of his life working within Penrith’s junior system, that premiership represented something more than first-grade success. Many of the players had emerged through precisely the development environment he had helped create.

From administration to the Board

Feltis later returned to the Junior League, an organisation with which he maintained an exceptionally long association.

His next important appearance in the narrative of Panthers, Passion & Politics came in 2002.

By then Panthers had become engulfed in the internal struggle between senior management and the group of directors who became known as the Footy Five.

Feltis stood in the October 2002 Football Club election.

The result was significant. Feltis received 1,072 votes and was elected, followed by Keith Rhind with 1,058 and Kerry Lowe with 954. Immediately behind them were the five directors whose return Roger Cowan and other members of senior management had publicly opposed.

The election later received considerable attention from Ian Temby during his inquiry into Panthers.

The election marked a transition for Feltis. His influence had previously been exercised predominantly through football and junior league administration, it was now part of the governance of the wider Panthers organisation.

The post-Cowan Era — Difficult Years.

Feltis replaced Barry Walsh as Chairman of Panthers in 2009.

The organisation Feltis chaired was substantially different from the one he had first joined. It was also substantially different from the Junior League where his administrative skills were suited.

Panthers had become a large multi-club group, but it was also carrying substantial debt and would soon face serious financial pressures. The Board itself formally carried responsibility for oversight of the Group’s financial management, viability and performance.

The difficulties did not originate during Feltis’s chairmanship, nor can responsibility for them reasonably be assigned to one individual. Some of the warning signs, and proposals for addressing them, predated his elevation to Chairman.

In 2007 Panthers engaged hospitality consultants Australian Leisure to review the operations of the Panthers Entertainment Group. After visiting the Group’s sites, the consultants presented their findings in early 2008. An off-site workshop involving Australian Leisure, Panthers management, ING and another external adviser was then convened to develop an action plan. The resulting recommendations were presented to the Board, but consideration of them was repeatedly deferred.

Glenn Matthews, who was Group Chief Executive at the time, recalls later raising the debt-reduction strategies again with Feltis after he became Chairman. According to Matthews, Feltis told him the Board did not want to pursue them at that time because “it is an election year”.

After leaving Panthers in June 2010, Matthews says he identified a further opportunity through which the ING debt could have been discharged for substantially less than its face value. He offered to assist Panthers with the negotiations, but says the Board declined the offer and chose to handle the matter itself. Matthews later maintained that the financial crisis should never have been allowed to become as serious as it did.

It is Matthews’s account, and he attributed the decision to the Board rather than specifically to Feltis. Nevertheless, it provides an important perspective on the governance of Panthers during the early period of Feltis’s chairmanship.

What is beyond dispute is that the organisation subsequently required substantial change.

Two of the most consequential decisions made during Feltis’s chairmanship was the return of Phil Gould to Penrith in 2011 and the appointment of Warren Wilson in March 2012 as Group CEO.

Gould was given wide responsibility for the football operation and became central to a long-term restructuring of Panthers’ football program. Feltis and the Board supported that process, and Gould later publicly thanked Feltis and his directors for their continuing support of the rugby league program.

Following Warren Wilson’s appointment as Group CEO in March 2012, Panthers embarked on substantial debt reduction, divestment and restructuring. The principal measures adopted reflected strategies that participants in the 2007 management workshop recall having recommended five years earlier.

Feltis therefore occupied the chair through both sides of a difficult period: the financial pressures confronting Panthers and the beginning of the restructuring from which the organisation subsequently emerged in a much stronger position.

He resigned as Chairman in July 2015, bringing to an end an association with Panthers administration that had extended across much of his adult life.

Legacy

Feltis made important contributions to Panthers’ elite football development, particularly during the Five-by-Five period, but that should not be confused with his broader contribution to the Penrith District Junior Rugby League.

The Junior League may ultimately provide the strongest measure of his administrative legacy. For decades, Feltis helped run an organisation responsible for providing rugby league to thousands of players across an enormous part of western Sydney and the Blue Mountains. Most would never become professional footballers. That was not the point. The competition existed for the children, teenagers and adults who played for their local clubs every weekend, and for the families and volunteers who sustained those clubs.

Administering an organisation of that nature required skills quite different from those involved in running an elite football team or governing a large licensed-club group. It was an area in which Feltis demonstrated considerable ability.

His record at those senior levels of Panthers was more complicated.

Yet two decisions made during Feltis’s chairmanship — bringing Phil Gould back to Penrith and appointing Warren Wilson as Group CEO — would have consequences extending well beyond his own time in the chair and stamp his legacy on Panthers.

Those consequences belong to the post-Cowan history of Panthers and fall beyond the scope of Panthers, Passion & Politics. Their full assessment is a story for another Panthers historian.

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Editorial Note

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Additional material may be introduced as the narrative progresses.

Hoist By Their Own Petard: The Footy Five Defeated

Part 65 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 18: The Footy Five Make Their Play

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

Start · Reader’s Guide · All Parts

Leading up to the election, Cowan was on holiday in Malaysia, but he was in contact with senior management and the non-aligned board members. Matthews was acting CEO. When the Western Weekender story hit, there were some urgent changes in strategy at the Club.

The Board conflict had also taken a toll on senior management. John Wilson was among those whose morale had suffered, while Glenn Matthews had begun applying for positions elsewhere. Matthews, who had risen through the Panthers organisation and had been identified as Cowan’s eventual successor, could see little future in remaining if the conflict continued.

Cowan had become increasingly concerned for the future of the Club if the Five retained their Board majority. And once the Weekender published the ‘Board Wars’ story, Barry Walsh was ready to pull out all stops. Cowan and Walsh discovered they had different ideas on strategy during a phone conversation from Malaysia. Cowan recalls,

My feeling was that we only had to remove two of the Five to remove their domination. Barry had already released a ticket with Bateman and Coffey, and I thought we could soften our attitude towards Geoff James. He had been a director a long time, and he was going through some personal crises. I even felt some sympathy for him at the time but I soon learned how easy it is to misplace such a valuable emotion.

I said to Barry,

“Maybe you are biting off too much here? It would be a lot easier to have two voted off than five”.

But they decided to go for the lot. It proved to be a wise move.

Until the Board Wars article, the extent of the Board conflict had not been widely known among Club staff. Now it seemed there was an attack on the management and on some directors who were quite popular with the staff. And now, for the first time, staff had an opportunity to vote

Ian Temby investigated the proposition that staff were pressured into voting against the Five. Glenn Matthews told the Inquiry that after the Weekender came out on Wednesday he had been inundated with requests from staff asking him what was going on.

I even had union delegates asking what’s happening. I could see how important it was for the majority of the 800 or 900 employees of that site.

Matthews headed up a regular team leaders’ meeting on the Friday after the Board Wars story hit.

I had a couple of outcomes I wanted to achieve at that meeting. Roger was away and the place was chaotic. First of all, I wanted to answer any questions about the article itself. I think I actually mentioned a no-confidence motion in the CEO. I was also being asked whether staff could vote.

Matthews says he held up the article, and that he told those at the meeting,

If you want to get rid of management, here is your chance.

He says he answered questions about the content of the article and explained that staff could vote. He told them that if they felt strongly about what was happening, they might exercise their right to vote.

He admits that he told the managers at the meeting that those calling themselves the Footy Five were in direct conflict with Cowan but says that was merely confirmation of what had been printed in the Weekender. He categorically denies that he told those at the meeting either to vote, or how to vote, although that particular allegation was put to him many times.

Evans and Bateman maintained that they had information, even affidavits, from staff members who said they had been pressured or intimidated. No affidavits were produced at the Inquiry, although one staff member appeared saying she felt intimidated. The DGR had been given a contact list of 40 Panthers employees. Terrence Lynch questioned opposing counsel as to why only three of those were called to give evidence.

What about the rest? If you’re not prepared to tell us what they said, then the inference is that they had nothing bad to say.

Matthews says there were two how-to-vote cards at the meeting – the one that had appeared in the Weekender, and the one that Temby took to calling the ‘management ticket’. Matthew says,

Members obviously made their own decisions about voting. They must have consciously decided how they voted. There were not following asterisks this time. Some people have said the fact that Greg was running, and had spoken out convinced them to go out and vote. But his ticket was not followed fully, or Bateman and Coffey would have got up. Also, staff voting the ‘management ticket’ could not have tipped the balance if the majority of other members had gone for Greg’s ticket without changes.

With any football team there is a group of diehard supporters who live and breathe their club. These are the people who make the massive coloured flags that fly at games all over the country. They are there through wind, rain and in freezing conditions. They travel on overnight buses to Melbourne or Brisbane to support their team. They are also a very strong network, with some very vocal leaders.

Some long time Panthers fans interviewed for this book said they were shocked when the Weekender story appeared, especially when it suggested that four of the directors were too old and should therefore go. Walsh, Rhind, Heidtmann and Armstrong were well known among supporters. For many years they had seen them, spoken to them, at Penrith and when they travelled to away games. A full-page ad, endorsed by Mulock and Cartwright supported the Footy Five and suggested the other four directors did not care about League.

The supporters said none of it rang true, and word went out. Up till then most had been casual about board elections but that was about to change. Alexander was certainly a factor but, if the members were just following his ticket, two of the Five would have been re-elected.

Matthews says that everyone at the inquiry seemed to assume that all the staff voted the one way and that that was what swung the election. ‘I know for a fact that’s not the case’.

Our employees have always been encouraged to think for themselves. They’re not sheep, or brainwashed, they can make up their own minds. And as for dragging people to polling booths – even if that had happened, which it certainly didn’t, once they’re there – how do I know what they put on their ballot papers?

And there was so much stuff going on anyway. Newspaper ads, all kinds of tickets flying around. Geoff James had people sitting in the foyer watching everything – including who was voting, and that was far more intimidating than anything management could have done. People were handing out Footy Five electioneering material at the railway station to passengers coming off trains, or standing like pizza boys at the lights giving voting cards to drivers.

Roger Cowan says that the end of voting was approached with excitement and apprehension.

The counting of the votes commenced at 6:00 pm on Saturday 5 October. By 7:00 pm, it was becoming obvious that the Five were in trouble. The only one that even appeared to be in the running was John Bateman. Dennis Coffey was also polling reasonably well, no doubt because both were on the tickets of Alexander and Walsh.

A few days after the election, I had no problem convincing Glenn Matthews and John Wilson they should drop any plans for leaving. On the other hand, the election result was greeted with anger and disbelief by some of the Footy Five.

Barry Walsh says the Five ‘kept shooting themselves in the foot’. The election result, he says, could never have happened without their ‘comedy of errors’.

The first change in the constitution drew the attention of prospective directors in Newcastle and Port to the fact that they could stand. Maybe they would never have even thought of it. But then the Five aborted the election, when all of them would have been returned.

Then they pushed and pushed for the second lot of changes to the constitution, which meant staff could vote. I’m not sure if even that would have been enough to change the result. But the craziest thing they did was that ‘Board Wars’ thing. They underestimated the power of the people, and that was really stupid.

John Bateman told the Inquiry that it was staff voting that made the difference.

There is no doubt we created the instrument of our own demise in terms of the amendments to the constitution in September 2002, because those amendments brought into play staff voting.

In a 2006 interview for this book Greg Evans said that he didn’t expect that ‘management would turn against them’.

According to Cowan, management had an inkling that the Five had a plan to lull management into a false sense of security. Suspicions were raised at a meeting in the weeks leading up to the election when Bateman congratulated management for keeping the conflict out of the media. Cowan warned his team to be alert. He speculated that a media attack was probably in their plan and would happen at the latest possible time to prevent a good response. The Western Weekender’s Board Wars story reinforced Cowan’s belief that his suspicions had been justified.

‘Staff voting was a big factor but so was Greg Alexander, I accept that,’ says Evans. ‘Greg was always going to get people’s votes.’

Evans also says he heard that ballot boxes had been tampered with, but everyone involved in the election, including the independent company engaged by Panthers to run it, says this is not possible. The DGR, during their initial investigation of the claims by the Five, viewed video footage of the voting and found nothing to substantiate claims of tampering.

Another point made by Evans in the interview was that management involvement in the election was inappropriate. He also denied that he used his newspaper to campaign during the election. Evans’ ownership had been the subject of questioning by Ian Temby at the end of his evidence, but Evans said that he did not have editorial control. However, in the election coverage and material reviewed for this book, his connection with the paper was not disclosed.

Questions about Greg Evans’ ownership of the Western Weekender and the newspaper’s coverage of the Board election also attracted attention outside Penrith. This item appeared in The Australian shortly after the election.

Publication: The Australian 17th October 2002
Column: The Diary (media)
Journalist: Stephen Brook.

This clipping courtesy of Rob Weaver.

Note: A broader archive of contemporary media coverage of the October 2002 Board election is currently being curated and will be added to Panthers Passion & Politics.

Throughout the Inquiry and since, Evans has made interesting statements. He claims there was a planned takeover of Panthers by the unions and says he could produce affidavits from employees intimidated during the October 2002 election. None of these allegations was ever substantiated.

It would have been in the interests of the Footy Five if such evidence had been produced. It was exactly what the Inquiry wanted. There was nothing presented that gave any support to the statements by Evans. There was nothing supporting his claims in CCTV real-time footage of the election, evidence from Newcastle directors, the investigation by the DGR or in any evidence of other witnesses.

In September 2003, one year after the defeat of the Five in the election, Geoff James revealed on Ray Hadley program on Radio 2GB:

We wrote a letter of complaint [to the DGR] in August of last year, and again in June of this year.

The 2002 elections formed part of the directors’ complaints and were part of the allegations listed in Ian Temby’s Instrument of Appointment for the Section 41X inquiry.

Cowan later expressed frustration that members of the Five received relatively little cross-examination from the Club’s legal team. He believed the approach was intended to avoid damaging the standing of the Board as a whole by exposing inconsistencies in directors’ evidence. In his view, a number of claims — particularly those made by Evans — could therefore have been tested more thoroughly.

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Commentary and Contributions

Major Player: Barry Walsh OAM

Barry John Walsh

Press Room Manager, Director, Chairman

Barry Walsh’s association with the Penrith Panthers extended across almost four decades and encompassed both sides of an organisation that, for much of its early history, struggled to reconcile the competing interests of football and the licensed club.

A Football Club director from the early 1970s, Walsh became a director of the Licensed Club in the 1980s and ultimately Chairman of Panthers. Along the way he served for decades as a delegate to the NSW Rugby League, managed a NSW representative side, became a Life Member of Panthers in 1987 and a Life Member of the NSW Rugby League in 2002.

His importance to the events described in Panthers, Passion & Politics, however, extends well beyond his longevity.

At several critical points in Panthers’ history, Walsh occupied a position between competing interests.

Around 1980 he helped bridge the deep divide between the Football Club and Licensed Club.

Almost two decades later, he became Chairman as divisions within the Panthers Board were becoming increasingly bitter.

He would occupy the chair through the Parramatta merger controversy, the expansion of the Panthers Group through amalgamations, the Board conflicts of 2002 and the subsequent Temby Inquiry.

Throughout much of that period he was also a longstanding colleague, supporter and friend of Roger Cowan. It was a relationship that placed Walsh close to many of the events that dominate the later chapters of this story, but one that did not always mean agreement.

Role in the Narrative

Barry Walsh first assumes particular significance in the narrative during one of the earliest struggles over how Panthers should be governed.

By the end of the 1970s, relations between the Licensed Club — which generated the money — and the Football Club — which needed much of it — had become increasingly difficult. Roger Cowan believed the answer was to bring both organisations under the control of a single board.

Walsh was then acting secretary (CEO) of the Football Club after replacing Ian Maurice — Walsh’s roots were therefore firmly on the football side of the divide.

According to Walsh’s later recollection, published in Men in Black, Cowan convinced him that the existing arrangement was becoming untenable. Walsh then took the argument back to his fellow Football Club directors. There were 14 directors on the Football Club Board and 12 on the Licensed Club Board and, as Walsh recalled it, the two groups were increasingly pulling in different directions. He urged his colleagues to think about Penrith rather than about themselves.

Eventually both boards agreed to amalgamate.

The decision placed the positions of 14 directors in jeopardy — so there were no guarantees for anyone. When the new Board was elected in December 1980, the Licensed Club directors had the numbers and secured all 12 positions. Not one Football Club director was elected.

Walsh had therefore helped persuade his colleagues to support a structural change that ultimately cost all of them their Board positions.

In December 1983, Walsh was elected to the combined Board until he resigned in 2010.

The episode established a role that would recur during his Panthers career.

Walsh was fundamentally a rugby league man, but this episode demonstrated his willingness to look beyond the immediate interests of the Football Club and towards what he believed were the wider interests of Panthers and its future.

Background

Away from Panthers, Walsh spent his working career with John Fairfax, where he was a press room manager before his retirement.

His involvement with Penrith rugby league began in the early 1970s and developed into what was effectively a second career. By the time he retired from the Panthers Board in December 2010, he had effectively recorded 37 years as a Football Director, and 28 years as a Panthers director. He was highly regarded and was affectionately known as The Football Director by many.

His rugby league involvement extended well beyond the Board room. He managed the NSW Rugby League representative side in 1978, served for some 30 years as a delegate to the NSW Rugby League and was Patron of the Penrith District Junior Rugby League. He was also closely involved with Panthers on the Prowl and served as its Chairman.

Walsh was made a Life Member of Panthers in 1987. In 2002 his contribution to the game was recognised more broadly when he became a Life Member of the NSW Rugby League.

In 2006 the City of Penrith recognized Barry’s contribution to the City by assigning him a position on their Wall of Achievement.

As part of the Queen’s Birthday Honours on 8 June 2009, Barry Walsh was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for service to Rugby League football through administrative roles in the Penrith district.

These were not incidental associations. Rugby league — and Penrith rugby league in particular—formed the foundation of Walsh’s involvement with Panthers and are important to understanding the positions he subsequently took during some of the organisation’s most contentious periods.

Recognition & Awards
• Life Membership, Penrith Panthers (1987)
• Life Membership, New South Wales Rugby League (2002)
• City of Penrith, Wall of Achievement (2006)
• Medal of the Order of Australia (2009)

Relevance to Events Described

The struggle for Penrith’s survival

By the late 1990s Australian rugby league had emerged from the Super League war into another period of uncertainty. The newly formed National Rugby League intended to reduce the number of teams, and Penrith’s place in the competition could not be assumed.

Cowan wanted the Board to investigate all available options, including a possible merger with Parramatta. The proposal became extraordinarily contentious.

Walsh later drew a clear distinction between investigating the possibility and supporting it. He said he had made it clear from the beginning that he would never vote for a merger with Parramatta, but believed the Board nevertheless had an obligation to investigate the option.

Walsh was a member of the Stand-Alone Committee established to develop and pursue initiatives aimed at advancing the Club’s position on “The Criteria”.

His position therefore reflected something already evident in the Board amalgamation debate almost two decades earlier: a willingness to investigate structural change without necessarily supporting the outcome being investigated.

Becoming Chairman

At about the same time, the composition and culture of the Panthers Board were changing.

Following the death of Deputy Chairman Vern Mychael, Walsh joined the Board Executive. As new directors arrived and began making their mark, the previously stable Board became increasingly divided.

In 1999 Leo Armstrong was replaced as Chairman by Walsh.

Walsh’s elevation occurred in unusual circumstances. He had been a supporter of Armstrong and was not part of the group seeking his removal. John Bateman initially approached Keith Rhind to take the position. When Rhind refused, Bateman approached Walsh. Faced with the reality that Armstrong no longer had the numbers, Walsh accepted the chair.

His subsequent description of his position was telling:

I never had control of the Board.

It was a difficult environment in which to chair an organisation. The Board was becoming divided between directors demanding greater scrutiny of management and others who retained greater confidence in Cowan and the existing management structure. Walsh’s longstanding relationship with Cowan inevitably placed him closer to the latter group, but the events that followed demonstrate that his support was not automatic.

Amalgamation and expansion

As Chairman, Walsh was closely involved when Panthers began pursuing amalgamations with financially troubled clubs elsewhere in New South Wales.

Walsh recalled that management had researched the concept extensively and that it had been discussed for more than a year. He saw potential advantages in expanding the Panthers brand, developing a broader rugby league following and building assets and cash flow. Because many of the clubs being considered were in financial difficulty, he also believed Panthers could acquire substantial assets on favourable terms.

His involvement was therefore more than ceremonial. Walsh understood and supported the strategic rationale behind what became one of the most significant expansions in Panthers’ history.

The expansion would, however, produce unforeseen governance problems — particularly over the voting rights of members joining Panthers through amalgamation.

The aborted election

Those problems came to a head in March 2002.

An election was underway in which members of the newly amalgamated clubs were voting in unexpectedly large numbers. Faced with the possibility of a substantial change in the composition of the Board, the directors unanimously decided to abort the election.

Walsh voted with the other directors to cancel it, despite Cowan strongly opposing that decision.

The episode provides an important qualification to any portrayal of Walsh simply as a dependable Cowan vote.

Walsh subsequently recorded concerns about how the actions of the Board might be viewed by the Department of Gaming and Racing. He stressed that he did not himself believe the directors were improperly manipulating the process, but worried that some recent Board actions might be perceived by the regulator as an attempt to influence the election outcome.

His concern was not merely about what the Board believed it was doing, but about how its actions might appear to an external regulator.

The controversy did not end there. The eventual Football Club election in October 2002 removed five sitting directors. Walsh, Leo Armstrong, Keith Rhind and Terry Heidtmann survived, while Greg Alexander, Greg Chapman, Don Feltis, Kerry Lowe and Col Bentley were elected.

Temby would later describe Walsh, Armstrong and Rhind as strong Cowan supporters. That was Temby’s characterisation, and Walsh’s longstanding friendship and confidence in Cowan certainly formed an important part of his position within the Board. But the cancelled election itself demonstrated that the relationship did not prevent Walsh from supporting a course Cowan strongly opposed.

The Temby Inquiry

As Chairman, Walsh inevitably became an important witness when the NSW Government established the Penrith Rugby League Club Inquiry under Ian Temby QC.

Temby found that significant elements of the information conveyed were incorrect and concluded that Walsh had misled the Board, although he considered this probably resulted from “confusion, rather than mendacity”, on Walsh’s part.

The episode exposed one of the tensions inherent in Walsh’s position. His relationship with Cowan had developed over decades and involved considerable personal trust. But as Chairman and a member of the Executive, Walsh also carried responsibility for independently scrutinising the arrangements surrounding the Chief Executive.

The Inquiry therefore forms an important part of Walsh’s record. It identified shortcomings in governance and oversight for which, as Chairman and an Executive member, he shared responsibility. At the same time, its findings need to be viewed within a much longer Panthers career rather than allowed to define it.

Beyond the Cowan years

Walsh remained Chairman after the Temby Inquiry and after Cowan’s retirement in 2005.

An episode recalled by Glenn Matthews provides an insight into the relationship between Chairman, Board and Chief Executive during this later period.

Matthews had decided to sign Matt Elliott as Penrith’s next first-grade coach before informing the Board. When he approached Walsh at a function and said he needed to speak with him, Walsh immediately asked:

“What have you done?”

On being told that Elliott had already been signed, Walsh responded:

“You what?”

Matthews subsequently prepared a paper explaining his decision for the directors. After considering his reasoning, he recalled that the Board supported him completely.

The episode is revealing. Walsh was plainly surprised that such an important decision had been made before the Board was consulted, but the Board was nevertheless prepared to consider the case Matthews put before it rather than simply react to the way the decision had been made.

Walsh continued as Chairman through much of the decade that followed. He was replaced as Chairman by Don Feltis in 2009.

He resigned from the Board on 22 December 2010, ending an association as a director stretching back almost four decades.

Legacy

Barry Walsh’s contribution to Panthers cannot readily be reduced to a single achievement or controversy.

He was, first and foremost, a rugby league man. His 37 years as a Football Director, decades representing Penrith within the NSW Rugby League, Life Memberships of both Panthers and the NSW Rugby League, and the award of the Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to Rugby League administration attest to that.

But his importance to the Panthers story lies equally in the positions he occupied when the organisation was changing.

Around 1980, he helped persuade Football Club directors to look beyond their own positions and support a governance structure bringing the football and licensed clubs closer together. Nearly two decades later, he became Chairman as another struggle over the organisation’s governance was beginning.

He subsequently presided through the fight to preserve Penrith’s place in the elite competition, the expansion of the Panthers Group, the bitter Board conflicts of 2002 and the searching scrutiny of the Temby Inquiry. He then remained Chairman as Panthers moved into the post-Cowan era.

His longstanding loyalty to Roger Cowan was part of that history, but it does not fully explain Walsh’s actions. At important moments he took positions independently of Cowan, including supporting cancellation of the 2002 election despite Cowan’s opposition.

Their friendship nevertheless survived the conflicts and controversies surrounding the final years of Cowan’s career.

When Cowan was later incapacitated by strokes and living in a nursing home, Walsh was among the relatively small number of former Panthers colleagues who continued to visit him.

Following Cowan’s death in 2017, Walsh reflected on the man with whom he had shared so much of Panthers’ modern history:

Icon is an over-used word, but if ever there was an icon in the licensed club industry it is Roger Cowan.

He added that Cowan was one of those who had “put Penrith on the map”.

Walsh’s own place in that history is different, but substantial.

He began as a representative of the football side of a divided Panthers, helped bridge the gap between its competing arms, and eventually chaired the much larger organisation that emerged. Across almost four decades, he experienced—and at important moments helped shape—the transformation of Penrith from a football club struggling for its place into one of rugby league’s largest and most complex organisations.

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The Battle for the Board

Part 64 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 18: The Footy Five Make Their Play

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

Start · Reader’s Guide · All Parts

The proposed changes to the constitutions of both Penrith District Rugby League Football Club (PDRLFC, the district club) and Penrith Rugby League Club Ltd (PRLC, the licensed club) were put to the Penrith members on 15 September, approved, and implemented. The sitting Board was in the box seat to be re-elected. Traditionally, sitting directors were all returned in a Panthers’ election. The system of placing an asterisk beside the name of each current director, and the apathy with which board elections were viewed by members, had seen few incumbents removed over the years.

The Five needed to retain at least five positions to maintain their majority on the nine-person Penrith Football Club Board. Those directors would then automatically take positions on the newly constituted Group Board.

But five seats would no longer constitute a majority at Group level. On the 14-person Board, additional support would be needed to command a majority.

They needed more than five on their team.

In changing the constitution, Brett Boon and the Board appeared to have missed one vital point.

Boon told the Inquiry that if persons who were members of the football club voted, there would be no breach of either the letter or the spirit of the Act. But, he said, he had no idea that hundreds of club employees were members of the Club.¹

During September, another unexpected element came into play. It arrived in the form of Greg Alexander.

Alexander was one of Penrith’s most prominent rugby league figures. In an exemplary career, he captained the Club’s 1991 premiership-winning side and represented Australia on numerous occasions. He was also a good friend of Glenn Matthews, who for the previous couple of years had been encouraging him to stand for the Board.

When it became known that he intended to stand, those close to the situation said that the Five felt confident of building a good relationship with him.

Alexander announced his candidature in the Penrith Press on Tuesday 24 September. In the accompanying interview he referred to the vote of no confidence in Cowan and said the CEO had his support.

That was a blow to the Footy Five.

Their preferred election ticket would have almost certainly included Alexander, the Five and two associates of Greg Evans. Had Alexander supported them — and had they secured the votes — it would have given them eight of the nine seats on the Penrith Board and eight on the 14-person group board. But now, Alexander had come out publicly with a statement of support for Cowan.

It was on the night of 24–25 September — immediately after the Alexander story appeared in the Penrith Press — that the mysterious envelope described at the beginning of this chapter (Part 61) was reportedly delivered to the Western Weekender.

The battle lines were now drawn.

Despite Alexander’s profile and popularity, his name was not among the eight candidates identified on the Weekender’s election ticket. Candidates numbered one to eight were listed, while beside number nine appeared the words ‘YOUR CHOICE’.²

It was another mistake. The ‘YOUR CHOICE’ instruction left “Footy Five” supporters following the ticket to select a ninth candidate for themselves — the option to vote for some of the people the Footy Five wanted to defeat.

Only six months earlier, some members of the Five had complained that the distribution of how-to-vote tickets in Port Macquarie and Newcastle breached the Club’s constitution. By September 2002, how-to-vote material was being used by them in support of candidates in the Penrith election.

In the two weeks leading up to the election, Weekender readers were bombarded with headlines, articles and photos relating to the election, along with advertisements and letters endorsed by Ron Mulock and Merv Cartwright. Many stories featured allegations and insinuations against other directors and Cowan.

Their supporters were handing out voting advice at many locations including the railway stations and the traffic lights outside the Penrith club.

The Footy Five’s election strategy was obvious — discredit Cowan and make it appear it was them, and only them, who had the Club’s interest at heart. Cowan and the four other directors — Cowan’s Four Kinsmen, as they were called in Mulock’s advertisement — were thwarting the Five in their effort to do the best for Panthers.

The Weekender continued to carry extensive election material through the end of the election. The result, however, was precisely the opposite to what it was pushing — perhaps sending an unfavourable signal to potential advertisers.

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At the time of the Panthers constitutional amendment, s 30(1)(h) of the Registered Clubs Act 1976 provided: An employee of the club shall not vote at any meeting of the club or of the governing body of the club, or at any election of the governing body of the club or hold office as a member of the governing body of the club. In November 2006, the section was amended to add a further restriction: An employee of the club must not vote at any election of the governing body of another club or association if any member of that governing body would, as the result of that election, be entitled or qualified to be appointed (or be nominated for appointment) to the governing body of the registered club. The later amendment therefore expressly extended the prohibition to the type of indirect election arrangement created by the remodelled Panthers constitution.
↩︎
The ticket needed to provide for a ninth preference because voters were required to number all nine boxes. A ballot numbered only from 1 to 8 would have been informal. ↩︎

← Part 63 · All Parts · Part 65 →

Commentary and Contributions

Major Player: Greg Evans

Greg Evans

Businessman, entrepreneur, newspaper proprietor, councillor, Panthers’ director.

Greg Evans was a prominent Penrith businessman, newspaper proprietor, local councillor and Panthers director who became one of the central figures in the Board conflicts of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Already well known within the Penrith community when he joined the Panthers Board in 1997, Evans became increasingly involved in disagreements over the future of the football club, the respective roles of the Board and management, and the exercise of authority within Panthers. On these and other issues, he increasingly found himself in opposition to Roger Cowan and eventually became one of the five directors who were known as the “Footy Five”.

His significance to the story, however, extends beyond that label. Evans’ business and civic standing, his ownership of The Western Weekender, and his strongly held views about the respective authority of the Board and management gave him an unusually influential position during one of the most divisive periods in Panthers history.

Role in the Narrative

Greg Evans enters the narrative during a period of considerable change on the Panthers Board.

Greg Evans joined the Panthers Board in 1997 after having previously stood unsuccessfully for election. His arrival was part of a period of unusual turnover on the Panthers Board, during which Craig Terry and Denis Coffey also joined.

Evans, Terry and Coffey subsequently became aligned with existing directors Geoff James and John Bateman. Ian Temby later described the emerging group as being determined to make management accountable. From Roger’s perspective, they increasingly represented an opposition to management.

Evans was instrumental in developing division.

He features prominently in the debate surrounding Panthers’ survival as a stand-alone NRL club in 1999, in the later disputes over the respective authority of the Board and management, the cancelled 2002 election and in the events that ultimately developed into the Board wars.

He was subsequently identified as one of the “Footy Five”, alongside John Bateman, Craig Terry, Geoff James and Denis Coffey.

Background

Evans had established a substantial business and community profile well before joining the Panthers Board.

Beginning his career as an analyst programmer, he moved into business management and became involved in computer distribution. After purchasing and operating a computer company, he took over the distribution business of a failed multinational supplier at the invitation of Apple Computer Inc. A later account of his career records that within two years the business had become Apple Australia’s largest distributor.

In 1991 he founded The Western Weekender.

Evans believed Penrith was often unfairly portrayed by the metropolitan media and saw an opportunity to establish a newspaper presenting the district from a local perspective. Under his ownership the Weekender developed into a significant independent local newspaper. Evans remained its owner and Chairman until 2008.

His media interests later extended to other publications and, briefly, local radio through Kick FM. He also owned the Sydney Spirit basketball team.

Evans was also active in civic and economic affairs. He served for nine years as a Penrith City Councillor, chaired the Penrith Economic Development Board for many years and served on a number of other local and regional bodies, including the University of Western Sydney and Western Sydney Institute of TAFE. He was also appointed to the Greater Western Sydney Economic Development Board.

By the time he joined Panthers, therefore, Evans was already a substantial figure within the Penrith community, with business, political, economic development and media experience.

Leadership and Culture

Matthews has consistently acknowledged Roger Cowan as the greatest influence on his development as a leader.

Working alongside Cowan during Panthers’ formative years exposed him to a management philosophy built upon trust, accountability and personal responsibility. Matthews has often recalled the lessons he learnt about treating people with respect, empowering staff to make decisions and responding to mistakes with honesty rather than blame.

One incident early in his career, when he admitted to a significant financial forecasting error, became a defining leadership lesson. Rather than reacting with anger, Cowan focused on solving the problem—an approach Matthews later identified as fundamental in shaping his own leadership style.

Those experiences would later influence Matthews’ own approach to leadership as he assumed increasingly senior responsibilities within the organisation.

Relevance to Events Described

One of Evans’ most important appearances in Panthers, Passion & Politics comes during the debate over Panthers’ future in the rapidly contracting NRL competition.

On 31 July 1999, the Board considered whether to sign a non-binding letter indicating that Panthers was prepared to investigate a possible joint venture with Parramatta. The proposal was intended to preserve an alternative while Panthers continued its efforts to survive as a stand-alone club.

Evans strongly opposed signing it.

He later explained his reasoning:

I really believed that signing that letter was signing to merge with Parramatta.

Despite the document being expressly non-binding, Evans believed that once Panthers entered the process the pressures being applied by the NRL would make amalgamation inevitable.

His position provides an important insight into the disagreement.

All of the directors wanted Panthers to survive as a stand-alone club. The division was over whether prudent planning required investigating alternatives in case that objective could not be achieved.

Evans genuinely appears to have believed that investigating the Parramatta option was itself an unacceptable risk. Others, including Roger, believed refusing even to investigate alternatives could place Panthers’ survival at greater risk.

The disagreement between Evans and Cowan, however, extended well beyond the merger question.

A deeper difference concerned the relationship between the Board and management and where operational authority should reside.

That difference became particularly evident during the crisis surrounding coach Royce Simmons in 2001. When Roger proposed returning responsibility for appointing and dismissing the football coach to management, Evans was vehemently opposed. The Board ultimately authorised Roger to deal with the matter, Simmons was dismissed and Evans resigned from the Board. He subsequently returned.

Evans later described the broader disagreement as an attempt by the group of five directors to get Roger to:

… come under the direction of the board, and to work within the parameters that they set.

Roger saw the governance issue differently. He believed the Board had an essential oversight role but that management needed sufficient authority to manage the organisation and remain accountable for the results.

The distinction was fundamental.

Both sides could argue for accountability and good governance while holding substantially different views about how those principles should operate in practice.

By 2002 Evans was firmly associated with the group that became known publicly as the “Footy Five”. The label would become an important feature of the Board election and subsequently of the way the conflict was remembered.

As explored elsewhere in this project, however, the name simplified a considerably more complicated history. The five directors did not begin as a formal group bearing that name, nor were they necessarily united on every issue. John Bateman later maintained that any real unison among the five developed much later, particularly during the licensed club amalgamation disputes of 2002.

The Publisher and the Director

Evans occupied another position that distinguished him from the other protagonists in the Board conflict: he was simultaneously a Panthers director and proprietor of one of Penrith’s most influential local newspapers.

The Western Weekender reported extensively on Panthers during a period when internal Board disputes were increasingly becoming public.

Roger became deeply concerned about confidential Board information finding its way into the media and believed the Weekender sometimes appeared to know of internal developments before management.

Evans’ dual roles inevitably complicated perceptions surrounding both the Board conflict and its public reporting.

The available material establishes Evans’ ownership of the newspaper and his role in setting its policy direction. It does not, by itself, establish the extent to which he personally influenced individual stories concerning Panthers.¹

Nevertheless, the combination was unusual. Evans was simultaneously participating in an increasingly bitter governance dispute inside one of Penrith’s most important institutions while owning an influential newspaper reporting those events to the wider community.

Legacy

Greg Evans died in July 2025.

The tributes published following his death reflected a life and career extending well beyond the Panthers Board wars. He was remembered as a businessman, newspaper founder, councillor, community contributor and a significant figure in the civic and commercial life of Penrith.

The Western Weekender, which he founded in 1991, remains perhaps his most visible contribution to the district.

The tributes also demonstrated how strongly one interpretation of the Panthers conflict had become embedded in local memory.

Evans was remembered as one of the Footy Five who had prevented Panthers from being amalgamated with Parramatta. One obituary described him as a key figure in ensuring Panthers remained a stand-alone NRL club, while another tribute credited him with helping block a concerted drive for merger.

The events described in Panthers, Passion & Politics reveal a more complicated picture.

There was no Board proposal in July 1999 to amalgamate Panthers with Parramatta. There was a proposal to investigate an alternative while continuing the fight to remain independent. Evans sincerely believed taking that step would ultimately lead to merger. Others believed keeping the alternative available was prudent protection against the possibility that Panthers might otherwise be excluded from the NRL.

That distinction does not diminish Evans’ commitment to the football club. Rather, it helps explain the strength of his position.

Nor does the merger debate alone define his importance to this story.

Greg Evans was an independently successful businessman, publisher and civic figure who became a significant participant in the divisions that developed within the Panthers Board. His approach to the future of the football club, the respective roles of the Board and management, and the exercise of authority within Panthers increasingly brought him into conflict with Roger Cowan.

His role is therefore important not simply because he became one of the Footy Five, but because understanding Evans helps explain the very different perspectives from which the Panthers Board Wars developed.

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Editorial Note

This profile is presented as contextual background.
Additional material may be introduced as the narrative progresses.

The fact that the managing editor of the Western Weekender remians unamed throughout Panthers, Passion & Politics, demonstrates Jennie Bentley’s view of who was driving editorial policy on the Panthers issues during the Panthers conflict and throughout the Temby Inquiry. ↩︎

When Penrith City Became the Major Sponsor

Beyond the Book — Commentary & Contributions

Phil Morehead remembers an unusual sponsorship idea — and the leadership lesson that followed.

Contributor: Phil Morehead

Phil Morehead was a partner in Thomas Marsden Advertising the advertising agency and design studio that supported Panthers for many years. Phil also was a long-time active member and President of the Penrith Valley Chamber of Commerce. In this contribution he recalls how Penrith P Panther came into existence and became a recognisable community figure.

In 1988, the name across the front of the Penrith Panthers jersey wasn’t a company or a commercial product.

It was PENRITH CITY.

The arrangement lasted for just one season. But the story of how it came about provides an interesting glimpse into the relationship between the Panthers, the business community and the city during a period when all three were growing.

For Phil Morehead, however, the strongest memory isn’t really about sponsorship at all.

It is about Roger Cowan.

Phil was a partner in Thomas Marsden Advertising, the long-time advertising agency for Panthers, and at the time was also President of the Penrith Chamber of Commerce. He remembers Roger approaching him because Panthers had been unable to secure what Roger regarded as a suitable major jersey sponsor.

Roger saw another possibility.

The football team was appearing regularly on television and in newspapers, carrying the Penrith name far beyond the district. If a commercial sponsor couldn’t be found, why not use that exposure to promote Penrith itself?

As Phil recalls:

Roger was big on promoting Penrith and realised the massive media exposure our football team was delivering every time they played. It was Roger’s concept to have PENRITH CITY on the jerseys.

Phil was wearing what he describes as his “two hats” — advertising man and Chamber President — and the two began developing a plan around the idea.

A city gets behind its team

The proposal went well beyond simply putting PENRITH CITY on a football jersey.

Bloodied and busted — Mark “MG” Geyer & John “Hoss” Cartwright bringing victory to their city. (Photo from Bound for Glory)

An Art Union was planned. Local motor dealers came on board with a new car as first prize. Other businesses would provide additional prizes, while the Chamber’s extensive business network would help sell and promote the tickets.

Responsibilities were allocated among the various people involved and another meeting was scheduled to check progress.

By then, Roger had acted — the jerseys had been ordered.

Phil had acted too. Retailers were prepared and the posters, tickets and other promotional material had been produced.

Then came the follow-up meeting.

In Phil’s recollection, almost nobody else had completed what they had undertaken to do. He particularly remembers a young Royce Simmons, then working with the junior clubs, apologising because he hadn’t had time to complete his part.

The original plan was in trouble.

“We will have to put this aside”

Roger looked at the situation and made the decision.

The jerseys could no longer be altered. Thousands of dollars had already been spent on promotional material. But without the other elements in place, the broader campaign could not achieve what had originally been intended.

Phil remembers Roger saying:

Well, the jerseys cannot be altered, we’ve already spent thousands of dollars on promotional material and I don’t think we can achieve our goal. We will have to put this aside and go back to the drawing board.

What impressed Phil was not simply the decision. It was the absence of everything that might easily have accompanied it.

No anger. No criticism. No ‘what are we going to do now’?

The plan had not come together. People had failed to deliver what they had agreed to do. Roger was undoubtedly disappointed.

But, as Phil remembers it, there was no attempt to embarrass anyone, allocate blame or prolong the failure.

A decision was made and everyone was allowed to move on.

For Phil, it became an enduring example of Roger’s leadership — particularly his capacity to make a hard decision without condemning the people whose actions had helped make that decision necessary.

The unexpected result

The original promotional scheme may not have proceeded as intended, but something significant remained.

The jerseys had already been produced.

So, throughout the 1988 season, the Penrith Panthers ran onto the field carrying PENRITH CITY across their jerseys.

The 1988 Penrith City Panthers (photo: Bound for Glory)
BACK (l to r): Rod McNeil, Matt Goodwin, Mark Geyer, John Cartwright, Graeme Bradley, Cal Van Der Voort.
MIDDLE(l to r): Bryan Hider, Neil Baker, Greg Alexander, Geoff Gerard, Chris Mortimer, Steve Colman.
FRONT (l to r): Greg Clements, Peter Kelly, Steve Robinson, Royce Simmons (c), Ron Willey (coach), David Greene, Brad Izzard.
Ballboys (l to r): Tim Bailey, Paul Bicknell, Brad Bateup.

For Phil, wearing his Chamber of Commerce hat, there was a considerable consolation. Panthers honoured the costs already incurred in producing the promotional material, while the Chamber could tell the local business community that its football team would be promoting Penrith City throughout the season without cost to the Chamber.

It was, in Phil’s words, one of the “win win” experiences of his time as Chamber President.

And the unusual arrangement proved short-lived.

In 1989, Calphos became the Panthers’ major jersey sponsor. In 1990, DahDah took over the major sponsorship, apppeared in a grand final, then a major change in colours, and a premiership win — impeccable timing. DahDah remained on the jersey through to 1993.

Phil wonders whether that prominent PENRITH CITY branding across the Panthers jersey helped open the door for the commercial sponsorships that followed.

Perhaps it did. But his recollection leaves another legacy.

A plan had failed. Money had already been spent. Commitments hadn’t been met. Roger had every reason to be frustrated.

Yet the thing Phil Morehead remembers almost four decades later isn’t the frustration.

It is the way Roger treated the people around the table.

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The Mental Game — Roger, Gus and an Idea Ahead of its Time

Today, the mental side of elite sport is taken for granted. Professional teams employ sports psychologists and mental skills coaches. Visualisation, relaxation techniques, controlled breathing and the management of anxiety and confidence have become familiar parts of preparing athletes to perform under pressure.

It was rather different in 1978.

More than four decades later, Phil Gould recalled one of his earliest encounters with those ideas — at Penrith, through Roger Cowan.

Gould told the story during an episode of Six Tackles with Gus in September 2021. The discussion had turned to Parramatta’s use of a mental skills coach during the NRL finals and to the relative importance of the physical and mental sides of elite sport.

For Gould, there was little doubt. At the highest level, he suggested, the mental component accounted for perhaps 95 per cent of performance. Players needed to learn how to control their thinking under pressure, he said, and that was a skill that took time to develop.

Then he remembered Roger.

An Experiment at Penrith

Gould described Cowan as the man who ran the Leagues Club and someone who read widely about self-improvement. Roger had long been particularly interested in hypnosis and in techniques, he believed could help people get the best out of themselves.

In May 1978, he decided to try some of those ideas with the Penrith first-grade team.

Gould’s memory of the occasion, 43 years later, compressed the chronology a little. He recalled the match as only his second game in first grade. In fact, he had debuted for Penrith in 1976.

But the match was a significant first for the young Gould.

It was his first game as captain of the Penrith Panthers.

The previous Sunday, 30 April, club captain Mick Stephenson had played his final match. Mounting injuries had finally brought his career to an end, but he went out with a remarkable performance. Penrith had lost its first five matches of the 1978 season; against North Sydney, Stephenson scored two tries as the Panthers recorded their first win, 17–16.

The following week, the captaincy passed to Gould.

He was just 19.

Penrith’s opponents on Sunday, 7 May were Eastern Suburbs. Gould recalls Bob Fulton being captain-coach of Easts that year but it was Arthur Beetson However, for this game at the Sydney Sports Ground Beetson did not play and Fulton was the captain.

Gould remembers the young Panthers being given virtually no chance.

Roger decided to try something different.

Shoes Off, Lie on the Floor

Before the game, Gould recalls, the Penrith players walked from the Sports Ground to a nearby hotel. Pubs were closed on Sundays in those days, but Roger knew someone who allowed the team inside.

The players removed their shoes and lay on the floor.

Roger began what Gould describes as a relaxation and hypnotherapy session.

He asked the players to relax, control their breathing and then visualise the match ahead. Gould remembers Roger asking them to imagine themselves playing the perfect game — making tackles, kicking well, scoring tries and seeing everything they did producing a positive result.

Gould, reflecting on this in 43 yers later, could see parallels with techniques that had become commonplace in professional sport.

At the time, however, this was something very different.

As the players lay quietly imagining their perfect performances, one of Penrith’s front-rowers¹ suddenly cried out:

“Oh No!”

Everyone sat up.

As Gould remembered it, that rather killed the mood.

Then they beat Easts.

Whatever contribution Roger’s experiment made, something went right that afternoon.

Penrith beat Eastern Suburbs 15–13.

Inevitably, Gould recalled, everyone credited the victory to Roger having hypnotised the team.

So they did it again.

Before the following match against St George at Kogarah on Saturday, 13 May, Roger arranged another session. This time, however, there was a practical problem.

At the Sports Ground the previous week, the hotel had been only a short walk away. Roger didn’t know the St George area nearly as well. The venue he found was down towards Blakehurst — much further from the ground than he had appreciated.

The players walked there, went through another session and then had to walk all the way back to Kogarah. They arrived late, rushed their preparation and St George beat them 26–9.

Gould’s conclusion was succinct:

That was the end of the hypnotherapy.

HEAR PHIL GOULD TELL THE STORY

In this 12-minute extract from Six Tackles with Gus (September 2012), Phil Gould recalls Roger Cowan’s experiments with hypnotherapy and visualisation at Penrith in 1978 — and explains the lasting influence the experience had on his own interest in sports psychology.

Excerpt from Six Tackles with Gus courtesy of Nine Network Australia

It would be easy to leave the story there — an entertaining glimpse of a very different era of rugby league.

But Gould didn’t.

Something Stayed With Gus.

Despite the scepticism of some of the players, and despite the somewhat chaotic end to Roger’s experiment, Gould says he personally got something from it.

More importantly, he says:

“It piqued my interest in sports psychology.”

That interest stayed with him.

When Gould eventually moved into coaching, he became, in his words, “a very strong believer” in the psychological side of preparation and incorporated it into his coaching programs. He sought out sports psychologists, learned from them, and developed ways of helping players understand their own thought processes, motivation, preparation and performance.

Gould’s approach was not about a few minutes of emotional motivation before a match. His 2021 explanation is much broader: self-appraisal, goal setting, preparation, communication, trust, relationships between players and understanding how an individual’s role affects those around him.

And he traced the beginning of his interest back to those early experiences at Penrith.

“That Sort of Stuff Was Unheard of Back Then”

There is an interesting echo to Gould’s recollection.

Many years later, Ivan Cleary encountered Gould as a young player at the Sydney Roosters.

In his book Not Everything Counts … But Everything Matters, Cleary recall being struck by the way Gould thought about football:

From the very start, I was blown away by the way Gus saw the game.

Cleary remembers Gould’s tactics and strategy, but specifically mentions “the mental side of the footy”.

On one occasion Gould brought a psychologist in to speak to the players.

Cleary’s recollection is telling:

That sort of stuff was unheard of back then.

Perhaps it was to Cleary.

But it wasn’t to Gould.

Nearly two decades earlier, a teenage Phil Gould had been lying on the floor of a closed Sydney hotel while Roger Cowan asked him to relax, control his breathing and visualise himself playing the perfect game.

More Than an Eccentric Experiment

In Part 43 of Panthers, Passion & Politics, Roger talks about his longstanding fascination with what he called “the power of the unconscious to affect performance”.

He explored meditation, hypnosis, NLP and other approaches to changing patterns of thought. At various times he worked directly with Panthers players who were struggling with confidence or performance.

Read in isolation, Roger’s recollections might sound like the unusual interests of an unconventional chief executive.

Gould’s story adds something important.

It independently confirms that Roger was actually experimenting with these ideas in the Panthers football environment as early as 1978.

Care needs to be taken about claiming any more than that. There may have been others in rugby league experimenting with psychological preparation at the time, and there is no need to claim that Roger Cowan invented or pioneered sports psychology in the game.

But it is interesting enough that Roger was exploring the mental dimensions of sporting performance at a time when such ideas were far from commonplace in rugby league.

Intersting enough because he had plenty on his plate with the entire Panthers enterprise. Interesting enough given the label “anti-rugby-league” tat had been applied by some.

The first experiment produced a memorable win.

The second produced a long walk and a 26–9 defeat.

And the hypnotherapy sessions stopped for then.

But for one 19-year-old player, something remained.

More than forty years later, Phil Gould could still trace his interest in sports psychology back to those unusual afternoons at Penrith — an interest he would eventually carry into his own highly successful coaching career.

Perhaps Roger’s experiment achieved something after all.

Related Themes

Innovation · Culture · Football Club

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Unfortunately Gould does not name the player. The front-rowers on the day were John Farragher and Ross Cale. In the second row were Paul Merlo and Tas Batieri. ↩︎

Tapping the Unconcious — Anti-Rugby-League?

Part 43 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 12: The Anti-Football Myth

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

Start · Reader’s Guide · All Parts

The anti-rugby-league tag is the one that angers Cowan most. It was such a ridiculous claim; he says.

I fought for years to bring about a more streamlined administration of Rugby League despite the conflict, and the criticism that I was bringing down on myself. The results speak for themselves. I was single minded about the need to run a profitable club. If we had spent all our money on football in the seventies, we would not have grown from that very tiny base to one that continues to compete at the top level. Whenever the football club was in crisis I stepped in and did both jobs.

Panthers’ group chairman Barry Walsh worked with Cowan for most of those forty years. He says that on a number of occasions when the team was going through a series of losses and nothing seemed to be working for the coach, Cowan assisted with player motivation. He adds that only very few people ever knew of Cowan’s involvement at that level.

It involved many hours of preparation and attendance at every game. On many occasions he was providing weekly counselling sessions for individual players who had specific problems affecting their performances.

Cowan recalls:

One of my greatest interests for many years has been the power of the unconscious to affect performance. There are many ways of tapping into that power. Meditation, yoga, hypnosis and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) are all examples and the benefit different people in different ways. I found that a sequence of losses could always be altered by changing patterns of thinking. The majority of athletes, even in losing teams, respond to some of the techniques. I also discovered some of the pitfalls of trying too much.

I only ever offered help after the team had suffered a string of defeats, and on every occasion, there was a turnaround at the very next game. Every time. There was no personal gain – my only motive was to help the team perform better and assist the coach.

My critics say that I would not pay the cost of having a good team. Yet some of them held a majority on the board and made the policy decisions. They never suggested any changes to the budgets for rugby league. When a coach was going through a tough time some of them held secret meetings with players. This brought bad publicity and further demoralised a coach who already had enough problems.

Supporting Rugby League goes far beyond cheering the team from free seats in the grandstand or a private box, rubbing shoulders with the stars of the game, grandstanding at annual meetings, and enjoying spectacular Rugby League events as an invited guest. Directors – and the patron of the club – held that privileged position. It was always disappointing to me that Ron Mulock did not appreciate it to the extent that he would at least accept an invitation from the Chairman to settle his differences quietly and privately in the Boardroom, rather than with very public criticisms.

The reader might be just a little puzzled at this stage about who was really anti-rugby-league – it always puzzled me.

BEYOND THE BOOK
Phil Gould remembers Roger putting these ideas into practice with the Panthers in 1978.
The Mental Game — Roger, Gus and an Idea Ahead of Its Time

If Cowan really had been anti-rugby-league, he could have saved himself a lot of anguish by leaving the hard decisions to others. He could have left the stress that goes with changing coaches and staff, running workshops, writing recommendations and fighting for a united administration to others, and kept right out of it. It is difficult to criticise someone for doing nothing.

It wasn’t as if there weren’t other things to think about. The Club was embarking on a brand-new path – to amalgamate with other clubs. Although totally unrelated to football, this new strategy would be used by some to feed the fires of the anti-rugby-league myth.

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← Part 42 · All Parts · Part 44→

Commentary and Contributions

Philip Ronald Gould AM

Role in the Narrative

Background

Relevance to Events Described

A different kind of football leadership

The first premiership

After the Premiership

A wider influence on rugby league

A Second Return to Penrith4

Significance to Panthers

Related Topics

Related Themes:

Project Updates

Editorial Note

Greg “Brandy” Alexander

Role in the Narrative

Background

Relevance to Events Described

Legacy

Related Topics

Related Themes:

Project Updates

Editorial Note

Donald George Feltis

Role in the Narrative

Background

Relevance to Events Described

Legacy

Related Topics

Related Themes:

Project Updates

Editorial Note

Part 65 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 18: The Footy Five Make Their Play

Project Updates

Barry John Walsh

Role in the Narrative

Background

Relevance to Events Described

Legacy

Related Topics

Related Themes:

Project Updates

Editorial Note

Part 64 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 18: The Footy Five Make Their Play

Project Updates

Greg Evans

Role in the Narrative

Background

Leadership and Culture

Relevance to Events Described

The Publisher and the Director

Legacy

Related Topics

Related Themes:

Project Updates

Editorial Note

Beyond the Book — Commentary & Contributions

A city gets behind its team

“We will have to put this aside”

The unexpected result

Related Topics

Related Themes

Project Updates

An Experiment at Penrith

Shoes Off, Lie on the Floor

Something Stayed With Gus.

“That Sort of Stuff Was Unheard of Back Then”

More Than an Eccentric Experiment

Related Topics

Related Themes

Project Updates

Part 43 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 12: The Anti-Football Myth

Project Updates

A Second Return to Penrith⁴