When Melbourne Storm run out on to the pitch at Sydney’s Olympic stadium ahead of the 2024 NRL grand final on Sunday night, it will be the 10th time they have done so under the guidance of Craig Bellamy. The 64-year-old’s remarkable record over three decades in charge of the team has led many observers to anoint him as the greatest coach in Australian sports history.
Four years ago the Storm met the Panthers in the NRL decider. It was the last game of Melbourne captain Cameron Smith’s illustrious career, and the curtain came down for him in fairytale fashion – triumphantly lifting the Provan-Summons trophy.
It was the end of a glorious era at the Victorian club – the final game of the Big Three of Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk, and the start of an epic era for their opponents Penrith. Speculation grew about Bellamy’s future and potential retirement, and how the Storm would struggle to cope without Smith, a legitimate rugby league great.
How wrong the doubters were. This year might have delivered the club’s first grand final appearance since 2020, but in the past four seasons the Storm have continued to do what they have since the Portland Colts junior took over in 2003 – consistently win.
In 22 years in charge Bellamy has led Melbourne to a phenomenal 21 finals appearances, with the only miss coming in 2010 because of a salary cap punishment. Six times awarded Dally M coach of the year, the self-described “cranky bastard” has guided the Storm to nine grand finals, winning five of them. His NRL winning percentage sits at a scarcely fathomable 70%, with just 172 defeats from 573 games.
Over more than two decades Bellamy has rebuilt and rejuvenated side after side, as champion players come and go. He has transformed journeymen into stars, and others into Immortals. His teams have lost Greg Inglis, Israel Folau, Cronk, Will Chambers, Jesse Bromwich, Slater and then Smith, but still kept on winning.
The Melbourne machine has been built around immense hard work, deep discipline and complete commitment. No shortcuts, no respite, no surrender. Under Bellamy, the ultra-competitor, the Storm’s pre-season army camps have become legendary.
His record, longevity and ability to win have led more and more observers of the game to laud the ex-Canberra Raiders centre as the greatest coach rugby league has ever seen.
Of Bellamy’s system, Phil Gould once said: “It teaches individuals within the team to stand up; it makes good players of average players; great players of good players; it turns great players into champions. Basically, it produces championship teams.”
Any conversation on league’s greatest coach of all time brings up the usual suspects – Jack Gibson, Wayne Bennett and Tim Sheens. Gibson, the original “supercoach”, led Eastern Suburbs and Parramatta Eels to glory in the 1970s and 1980s. An innovator and larrikin, Gibson revolutionised rugby league with his use of video analysis and computer methods and was inspired by NFL mentor Vince Lombardi.
Gibson was also a huge influence on Bennett, the former police officer turned coach who has won seven NRL grand finals with Brisbane Broncos and St George Illawarra. Headed now to take over South Sydney, after two years establishing Redcliffe, the 74-year-old Queenslander has had success at NRL, State of Origin and international level. He even took England extremely close to a World Cup win in 2017.
Without Gibson there would probably be no Bennett, and without Bennett and Sheens, the grand final-winning Canberra and Wests Tigers coach, Bellamy as a coach would arguably not exist. A product of two outstanding mentors, the 64-year-old played under both Bennett and Sheens in the nation’s capital, and then coached under Sheens and spent time as an assistant to Bennett at Red Hill.
“I was very lucky to have five years under Tim and then five under Wayne,” Bellamy told Fox League in 2022. “I don’t think you’d get too much of a better education than under them. They were just so different… I got the best of both worlds.”
The man nicknamed “Bellyache” – because of his coaching box rages and tough personality – learned from Bennett’s man management skills and Sheens’ technical genius and made it his own. Bellamy has been able to get the best out of troubled geniuses like Cameron Munster and was one of the first to use wrestling techniques to give his teams an advantage.
While he failed to get NSW to fire against Queensland’s greatest State of Origin squad and has not coached in the international arena, it is not just Bellamy’s results and durability that make him special.
It is also his long list of proteges who have gone into professional coaching – whether that be Brad Arthur, Michael Maguire, Adam O’Brien, Anthony Seibold, Kevin Walters, Stephen Kearney, Jason Ryles or Slater, his impact is profound.
Bellamy’s status in Australian rugby league may be secure, but how he ranks compared with coaches in other sports will be forever debated. Ange Postecoglou dominated the National Soccer League and the A-League, won the Socceroos’ only major trophy and has claimed titles in Japan and Scotland. If the Tottenham manager can win some silverware with the serial English under-achievers, he may have no peer.
Bob Simpson and John Buchanan enjoyed golden eras in Australian cricket. Bob Dywer and Rod McQueen both won World Cups with the Wallabies. In Australian rules football, Jock McHale has coached the most premiership wins (eight), while Norm Smith, Tom Hafey and Kevin Sheedy made their mark.
In hockey Ric Charlesworth has no comparison. A 1976 Montreal Olympics silver medallist and former politician, Charlesworth first led the Hockeyroos to world and Olympic glory, before replicating that feat with the Kookaburras from 2009 to 2014.
The mantle of Australian sports’s best coach can be endlessly challenged, argued and discussed. One for endless pub chat. But regardless of the result this Sunday, Craig Bellamy’s achievements and influence are unlikely to be repeated.
