Overseeing his 500th NRL game when Melbourne host South Sydney on Thursday night, Craig Bellamy says there's no longer a deadline for a decision on his coaching future.
Bellamy will join an elite four-man club who have reached the milestone and boasts the best winning percentage of the quartet at 70 per cent.
Whether he makes it to 600 remains to be seen with Bellamy saying the Storm board have scrapped a March 31 deadline for him make a call on whether 2022 will be his last.
As well as off-season drama with the white powder trio and the departure of key players Dale Finucane and Nicho Hynes, the coach has been dealing with the loss of his mother and some serious family health issues.
"I was supposed to make a decision but it's been a bit of a disrupted pre-season for me in a few ways and I haven't worked that out so the club has been good enough to give me a bit more time," Bellamy said on Wednesday.
The 62-year-old said he would move into a director of coaching role with Melbourne but it was just a matter of when.
He said he was waiting for an ebb in his hunger to compete or a drop in his attention to detail to provide a hint that his time was up.
"I don't want to be letting anybody down so when I lose some enthusiasm or I think I'm not being as thorough or as hard-working as I need to be, that's when it's time to go," Bellamy said.
"I'm not sure what that reason will be but things change in your life.
"I'm a grand-father and it's one of the most enjoyable times but as soon as I feel I can't give it the time and effort that I've given it my whole career well then I know that's the time that I'm out."
Bellamy has seen enough over his 20 seasons with Melbourne to feel confident the Storm can ride out their current rocky period.
They were hit hard with injuries in round one, losing skipper Christian Welch (achilles) and winger George Jennings (knee) for the season and star hooker cum ruck Brandon Smith (hand) missing a month.
Playmaker Cameron Munster, incoming hooker Harry Grant and co-captain Jesse Bromwich missed the opening round through suspension and COVID-19 protocols with the Storm still trying to cover the departure of Finucane and Hynes.
But having steered the Storm through the traumatic 2010 salary cap scandal and the loss of the Big Three - Cameron Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk - Bellamy has enough belief the current personnel changes won't impact their season.
"Obviously there's some challenges losing Welchy and George and Brandon is out for little bit so it's been a tough week but I was so proud of what the team did, we've just got to make sure we back that up again this week," Bellamy said.
"It doesn't happen too often that you lose two players, one being your captain, for the season on one night.
"We needed to get out of that mindset when we came back to training this week and I think the boys have.
"It was certainly a downer ... but we've had to move on from there."
