Phil 'Gus' Gould

Rugby League wouldn't be what it is today without Queensland and Origin in the 80s.

I think it totally transformed our game completely as a broadcast product, as a popularity in sport in Australia.

Our game owes a lot of gratitude to the Wally Lewises and Arthur Beatsons and those fellas in the 80s.

And what it inspired us to do as New South Wales people.

Sorry.

You're right.

So, yeah, so that's, you know, and I think too it's important to note, you know, when we're talking about Anzac days and motivating footballers, people get the wrong impression a little bit when we talk about the military and different things like that regarding football.

It's not thinking that we're anything like them, that we're anything like soldiers and it's anything like war.

In fact, it's the complete opposite.

It's more like, look what they have to endure and what they are.

It's kind of a part of that building that camaraderie and that courage.

You need to go into these games without fear or hesitation or worrying about consequences.

No one's going to die here.

Our consequences are not life and death.

It's a game of football.

This is a game, and we should be really excited about what we're going to do.

It's a story I tell often.

with footballers particularly young footballers because they do go through a lot of personal anxiety and a personal stress and the pressure can get to them it gets to their families and their families put pressure on them and that sort of thing and you know when you're sort of relating things like Anzac Day or things like you know wars and that sort of thing to sport one of the stories I do tell particularly to young sports people and I might tell it pretty regularly at least once a year I'll sit down with a young group of footballers and

tell them about my experience in Papua New Guinea where I went to the Bamana War Cemetery up there.

And if you've never been there, it's a beautifully kept war cemetery up there where all our fallen soldiers from the Kokoda Trail and conflicts that we had up in that area have been.