‘My idea, I’d be silly not to ask him’: Barrett rubbishes claims Gould undermining him with training help

Trent Barrett has rubbished claims that Phil Gould has been running training at the Bulldogs, telling media that the training sessions that involved their general manager of football were his idea.

Speaking at Belmore before the clash with the Roosters on Saturday evening at Accor Stadium, Barrett said that it would be stupid of him not to engage “Gus”, who is the most successful coach in NSW Blues history and won premierships as a coach with the Bulldogs in 1988 and Penrith in 1991.

“We had planned video. Gus has done it a couple of weeks in a row now, we go through some stats and present them to the team,” said Barrett.

“I wanted him to go through a few things out of the field that he did for me. That was it. It was my idea. It’s not (the first time). It’s been blown into something that wasn’t an issue. It’s a bit of a distraction.”

“I don’t want to go into it, to be honest, but why wouldn’t I use a resource like Phil Gould in the club?

“He’s our GM of footy, he’s a very good coach, a premiership-winning coach, he’s here to help and we’re in it together. Why wouldn’t I ask him to help if I think he can offer some good input?

“Gus doesn’t interfere in any tactical things. He’ll give an opinion to me and we speak regularly on it. That’s his job and what he’s here for. And again, why wouldn’t I ask for his opinion?”

Barrett said Gould had performed similar roles in the past when both were on staff at Penrith and the players had been responsive to what Gus had told them, despite reports of a confrontational tone from the Dogs supremo.

“It’s pretty well exactly the same (as at Penrith),” explained Barrett. “There’s times when I was at Penrith where Gus would be heavily involved in different things, doing video and on the field, so certainly it’s nothing out of the ordinary for myself and Phil.

“They (the players) were good. He doesn’t mince his words, and it’s not the first time he’s done it. He did the same the previous week on the same day with the same data.

“And there was a vast improvement in some of those areas last week against Brisbane, albeit not for long enough again.

“I thought they responded to it and it was good, actually.”

“He certainly doesn’t undermine anything that I do here. He’s here to help. I think if he can help, I’ll use him. I’ll use him again when we have a similar meeting next week.”

Phil Gould (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

Barrett is facing the prospect of being statistically the worst coach in Bulldogs’ history if his team lose on Saturday: he would have a winning percentage of just 12.5%, equalling that of Ed Courtney from 1935.

It would be slightly unfair to read too much into that stat, however: Barrett inherited the worst roster in the NRL last year and has had to turn several contracts around, while this year, the club has faced a difficult set of fixtures to start the year.

Now, they face a Roosters side coming off an ANZAC Day defeat to the Dragons, and have recently lost captain Josh Jackson to a positive Covid test. Ava Seumanufagai is in the box seat to replace Jackson at lock, unless an exemption for Billy Tsikrikas can be gained from the NRL.

Despite six consecutive losses, there has been improvement in performance over the last few weeks, and the coach said meetings such as that with the players and Gould this week delved into the benchmarks that are set with the group that were independent of the final result.

“There’s a lot of KPIs for different positions,” he said. “A lot of it is around effort areas and different ways they contribute to the overall performance.

“We just have to keep getting better. We get another opportunity this week to get better again against a really good side in the Roosters. They’re coming off a loss that they wouldn’t have been happy with.

“It can turn around quite quickly. The Tigers were in a similar situation to us a fortnight ago and have had two one-point wins and now they’re off and going and it’s happy days. We know that we need to win some games.

“We’re under no illusions there. We get another opportunity this week.”

“It’s frustrating for us. Up there at the Broncos we were 16-10 and we probably should have beaten them. We had a one point loss against Manly and then we played the top four teams from last year.

“We always knew we had a tough draw and while we would have liked to have won a couple more games through this period, it is what it is. We have to keep aiming up and stick together.”