Phil 'Gus' Gould

Well, it's origin.

I don't know how it started.

I mean, it wasn't a deliberate thing.

I'd sort of...

I can remember we were doing a city-country game up at Newcastle somewhere, and they just asked me to go out and read out the team sheets at the start of the thing.

And I was only sort of new to television anyway, and all I had to do was read the team sheets.

And for some reason, I went into some rant about,

you know, the country people think the city people are soft.

You know, well, let me tell you where the city people come from.

They come from Mount Druitt and Reesby and Blacktown.

You know, they're not soft areas.

You know, we'll give it to these blokes.

And I went back up to them and I said, what the hell was that?

I said, I just get sick of country people thinking the city people are soft.

I said, we all don't all sit around the eastern suburbs drinking lattes.

We come from football towns, you know.

So then...

I think the next Origin series, they said, can you do something similar for the Origin?

I said, like what?

They said, like a pre-match team talk or something, you know.