Ask Gus: Hardest Worker Ever Coached and Gus’ go-to Chinese dish
5/1/20268 min
This week on Ask Gus, Phil Gould tackles the big questions from listeners. Who was the hardest-working player he ever coached? Did Queensland’s eight straight Origin series wins ever tempt him back into the New South Wales coaching box? Gus also weighs in on whether James Tedesco deserves an Origin recall at 33, whether Melbourne are truly missing Ryan Papenhuyzen at fullback, and even reveals his go-to Chinese order.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMathew Thompson· Host0:00
Ask Gus, our bonus episode coming to you ahead of round nine of the competition. Send your messages via Instagram or Facebook to NRL On Nine. Joshua David wants to know who is the hardest working player you have ever coached.
Phil Gould· Host0:12
The hardest working player I ever coached.
Mathew Thompson· Host0:15
Yeah.
Phil Gould· Host0:15
What, on the field or off the field or?
Mathew Thompson· Host0:17
I think maybe just a general question.
Phil Gould· Host0:19
Yeah, w- I've coached some players with really great constitutions for what ... Coached a bloke in the early '90s, um, out at Penrith, a bloke called Colin Vandervort- Colin Vandervort ... uh, who was an absolute machine. If you watched him train, you wouldn't think it possible, but on game day he was just one of those blokes that was a game day warrior. He just ... Absolutely brilliant, and played with injury and ... I coached another fellow at the Roosters called Luke Ricketson. Um, Luke ended up running marathons after he retired from playing.
Mathew Thompson· Host0:48
Did he?
Phil Gould· Host0:48
He ran a couple of marathons and trained for that, but he was like that as a player. Um, and I can remember I picked him for an Origin series once, and, uh, Andrew Johns said to me at the end of the series, he said, "I, I never understood how good a player Luke Ricketson was to have him out on the field out there." You know, he was a ... He had a really great constitution for hard work. Um, they're, they're all good athletes and they all work really hard. Um, Bradley Clyde was a phenomenon, uh, a, a, a physical beast, uh, with the amount of work that he could get through. Um, yeah, but those, those hardworking players that just do it all on effort, um ... Bradley Clyde was a player with class, but also played like a bloke whose life depended on every