“HE hasn’t coached for 20 years. If anyone’s old school he has to be in that conversation.”

Anthony Griffin is talking about Phil Gould, one of rugby league’s most divisive figures but certainly one of its most powerful.

By the time the sacked Panthers coach finishes his extraordinary tale of betrayal at the hands of Gould, it’s hard to see how anyone in the game will look at Gus the same way again.

GRIFFIN SLAMS GOULD: ‘HE NEEDS TO BE IN CONTROL’

Round 20

‘TERRIBLE SHAPE’: GRIFFIN REVEALS SHOCKING STATE OF PANTHERS

ON THE FENCE: CLEARY WON’T COMMIT

“I’m not here to bullshit. I’ve been around a long time,” Griffin says. “I’m telling my side of the story because I think I have done an exceptional job with that club. And unless I set the record straight I will get no credit for it.”

And set it straight he does. If you’re a Panthers fan, put the kettle on and get comfortable. If you’re Phil Gould, put the phone on aeroplane mode.

Me and Gus — where it all went wrong

Phil Gould and Anthony Griffin don’t get on, according to Hook. Source: AAP

When Griffin arrived at Penrith from Brisbane in 2015, he says, “the joint looked like a country fishing club”.

“There were short players, fat players, tall players. The place was KFC and a run around the oval. Gus warned me that it would be nothing like I was used to at the Broncos.

“The biggest thing I could see at Penrith that Gus could not see at the time was the ability to build a team from the inside out. He had been recruiting bottom eight players.

“He sat back and said ‘go for your life.’ We brought Nathan (Cleary) in, Fisher-Harris, a heap of others and it was all good.”

But Griffin says Gould grew impatient for success and began trying to shape the team’s play around the opposition.

“I look at it as that Sydney mentality. He thinks everything can be fixed with a play. ‘You have to run this play against this mob and that will fix the problem.’ ”

Griffin says Gould’s meddling was “a bit like a father-in-law”.

“I am what I am. In Queensland you learned to build a whole club and recruit well. I’m patient with that and it’s worked. The club is at the next level. When I came in they were playing off for the wooden spoon.”

THAT blue in the tunnel at Belmore

To fans at least, the first serious tremor in the Griffin-Gould relationship erupted in the tunnel on a 40-degree day at Belmore in February. The Panthers were playing a second-string Bulldogs side and Griffin, like most coaches, was using the trial game to get a fix on his players’ form and fitness. The result (24-10 to Canterbury) was inconsequential, Griffin thought.

“Yeah, the blue in the tunnel”, Griffin says with a country boy’s grin. “So what happened there was my whole focus of that game was getting my forwards to play 40 minutes. I couldn’t have given a f**k about the attack. Gus came in and listened to my speech at half time. I walked past him in the tunnel on the way up to the coach’s box and said ‘how you going?’”

“He says to me: ‘You didn’t even f***ing address the attack.’ I thought he was joking. I thought, he can’t be serious.

“The next thing I know I’m getting texts from a journalist about a fight at Belmore with Gus. I went to him to ask what he wanted to do about the story and he says ‘it never happened.’ ”

“I said, yeah, but it did happen. That’s Gus. He wants to call me old school but I was never going to be subservient to him.”

Contrary to his persona as a fiercely independent thinker, Griffin says Gould can be easily influenced.

“If someone rings him from outside the club and says one plus one equals three, you have to convince him ‘no, it’s two.’ ”

‘When we flogged St George, it was the saddest I’ve ever seen him’

Anthony Griffin was sacked on Monday. Source: News Corp Australia

It was a Saturday night in May and the Panthers did an absolute demolition job on the Dragons to leapfrog the premiership favourites to first spot on the ladder. Nobody saw the 28-2 scoreline coming, a result enhanced by the biggest Panthers Stadium crowd in eight years.

As the club song rang out at full-time, Griffin says he heard not even a murmur of congratulations from Gus.

“It’s the saddest I have ever seen him. We were officially on top of the ladder, having overcome this huge run of injuries earlier in the year, but nothing.

“When we lost there was always an inquiry, how had we had failed in our preparation, but there was never any inquiry when we won.”

Griffin says when the Broncos obliterated the Panthers 50-18 at Suncorp Stadium two weeks ago, Gould’s mood was much improved.

“I have never seen him so happy than when Brisbane put 50 on us. And then I’ve never seen him so agitated than when we just beat Manly (in a 28-24 thriller at Lottoland on July 28).”

‘You’ve lost the dressing room’

For most of the hour and a quarter Anthony Griffin spends in the Fox Sports offices on Wednesday morning, his phone never stops flashing with text messages.

He’s asked for their privacy to be respected, but safe to say the heartfelt texts are rolling in from the big names in the Panthers squad.

So how can Gould come out and say Griffin was sacked because he lost the dressing room?

“He needs a reason to justify why he would sack a coach four weeks from the finals when the team is in a successful position,” Griffin says.

“I have never had a problem with anyone in the playing group.”

‘I have been wronged’

Gus Gould and his young star, Nathan Cleary. Source: News Corp Australia

Like everyone else, Griffin has followed news of his own demise through the media. He needed little motivation to speak and hopes his side of the story will allow him to coach at the top level again.

“I have been wronged by a club that I have done so much good for,” he says.

“I did a good job. I have done a lot of hard yards and now I have got to go and find another job.”

Not many who played under the man they call “Hook” would argue with that.