Phil Gould says he should send an invoice to St Helens after World Club Challenge win

A lot was made of Phil Gould’s comments ahead of the World Club Challenge with the NRL pundit and Canterbury Chief saying Penrith “should be able to declare at halftime” against St Helens.

After St Helens won, plenty of Saints players hit back at Gould after the game such as Jonny Lomax and Alex Walmsley.

Now Gould has jokingly saying he will send an invoice for being the motivation for their World Club Challenge win.

“I was the motivation? Where do I send my invoice? What was the coach doing if I had to motivate them?” he said on Six Tackles with Gus Gould.

Gould did go onto say that Saints prepared for the game perfectly: “St Helens came out in the camp for three weeks, they made a big deal out of this and they got themselves ready. We actually had dinner with Mike Rush, Paul Wellens and the CEO the night before in Canterbury.

“Mike Ross said ‘we’ll be hard to beat’, and Paul Wellens said ‘yeah we’re really ready, we’ve gone about it the right way with coming over, we’ve planned for three weeks, had a trial game and they’re going to know they’re in a game’.

“Putting it bluntly Penrith didn’t put their best foot forward at all and St Helens did, that’s what you have to do in the big games and they deserve the trophy. They’ve got it on the plane home and they can stick it to me all they like, good luck to them.”

He then spoke about the potential for English sides in the NRL’s pre-season tournament moving forward:

“It was a big thing for them, they took three weeks to come out here. They stayed, they trained, they got acclimatised, they had a trial game against the Dragons which they wont and were just too good for the Panthers.

“They really gritted it out, the good thing about it was that Penrith usually blow sides away early. Penrith start very fast and you just can’t go with them and they they accumulate the points later.

“They got into Penrith early, jumped to the lead and protected the lead with pride and got the job done. Penrith probably score a lucky try in the last minute there to get at the golden point, but St Helens when they go their chance they kicked their field goal and did it very professionally.

“They’re obviously a very good side.”