Great article about Bellamy and behind the scenes at Storm

[Super Cronk]

Here is an article that is on theage website...its about Bellamy and how things work behind the scenes and how about he got to do the job and the fact that he almost quit after the first year....its long but very intresting.


theage- Storm trooper
BY A quirk of history, the football club that is flying highest in Melbourne just now occupies the premises of the club that has fallen farthest.

Melbourne Storm is where Carlton once was, in several senses, and coach Craig Bellamy's office at Princes Park is adjacent to the old haunt of Denis Pagan and his illustrious predecessors.

It is small and cluttered, more like a shed than an office. Aesthetically and functionally, it is a humble place. But from it, Bellamy is directing a team that won 11 matches in a row before an upset defeat last weekend, and is already rugby league's minor premier.

So much has changed in such a short time since Bellamy arrived as a novice to coach Storm in 2003. He had visited Melbourne only twice previously, and admits that he was taken aback at first.

"I must say when I got here, I got a bit of a shock at the passion of the people and how parochial they are towards the AFL," he said. "I knew it was big here, but it's a religion. That took me a little bit by surprise."

He had left his family behind in Brisbane, mostly so that his son and daughter could finish school there, but also because of the uncertainty. "I'd never been a senior coach before. It could all have gone belly-up in two years," he said.

He was anonymous in Melbourne, and when he was recognised in Sydney or Brisbane, it was as a former Raider or Bronco. Every other day, he would get a call from Brisbane to report a new rumour about how Storm was about to be relocated to the Central Coast or the Gold Coast. There was no rugby league on television, except in the small hours, which he does not keep.

Bellamy had played for Canberra and coached at Brisbane, two successful and well-resourced clubs. He had seen how the Brisbane Lions, although isolated in Brisbane as Storm was in Melbourne, at least had ample facilities and staff.

"It was chalk and cheese. I probably got a bit downhearted at the start," he said. "The first couple of years here, it was a struggle to get the help you needed in the little things.

"In Brisbane, if you needed a kicking coach or a sprint coach, they'd be lining up at your door to do it, because it was the Broncos. Down here, it wasn't like that."

At first, there was only Bellamy, an assistant coach, a strength and conditioning coach and "Thommo, who did the strapping and the water". Storm had not been in the finals for a couple of years and was in a mess.

"They were quite unprepared when we first got here," Bellamy said. "Their fitness and strength levels were way behind that they should have been, I must say." The first time trial of the pre-season was won by the coach.

He admits now he was tempted to quit in his first year. "The thought did pass my mind, I must say. I was working myself into the ground," he said. "(Chief executive) John Ribot pulled me into his office once, and said: 'Mate, you've got to slow down. You're going to burn out.' It was fair advice. But there were things that needed doing, and someone had to do them."

Besides, hard work was and remains Bellamy's staff and motif. He grew up in a small town called Portland, between Lithgow and Bathurst, known only for its cement works.

His father worked there ? and died there, in a quarrying accident. "They were right in the middle of town. They closed down about 15 years ago," he said. "But there's a lot of coal mines and power stations. It's real blue-collar. I think I'm pretty well known for my work ethic, and I think I got that from my upbringing. If you wanted something, you had to go out and work for it."

Bellamy was not a junior star, but he was driven. "I was nothing flash. I was quite small," he said. "But I always worked real hard on my fitness. When I look back, if I'd worked as hard on my skills as on my fitness, I would have been a bit better player. But that's how it was then."

He played more than 150 games for Canberra, including the 1990 grand final. He first contemplated coaching when he was 26 and his son, Aaron, was born. But the idea did not crystalise until seven years later when the Raiders unexpectedly offered him the under-21 job.

"I did miss playing for a long time, I must say. That was the hardest thing about taking up coaching early. I was 34, but still fit. At that stage, I never thought I'd make a career out of coaching. The main attraction was still being involved in footy, at a good level. It was a good decision in the end."

Bellamy absorbed the lessons learned from playing and coaching under notables Tim Sheens, Don Furner, Mal Meninga and later Wayne Bennett, but also Greg Fryer, an unknown from his hometown whom he said was 15 years ahead of his time.

He developed a philosophy based on fitness, defensive soundness and sheer hard work. But he said he did not subscribe to the theory that battling players necessarily made better coaches. First, it assumed that great players did not work as hard. Second, he could name great players who had become great coaches anyway.

His own virtue, he said, was single-mindedness. "I'm not very good at many things. Whatever I do, I don't have to be the best at it, but I want to be the best I can," he said. "It's the same thing I've taught my kids. I'm the sort of person who has one or two things that are important. That's who I am."

In 1998, Bellamy moved to Brisbane and worked as an assistant to the legendary Bennett at the Broncos. "It wasn't until the late '90s that I thought I might be capable of coaching a first-grade side," he said. "But, boy from the bush, I was very naive. I thought when I was ready, someone would come knocking. But it's not like that. You've got to push your own barrow a bit."

His break came in 2002 when Bennett left Bellamy to coach Brisbane for a week while he was with the Queensland team. Short-handed because of state-of-origin call-ups, and with only five days to prepare, the Broncos were given no chance against the Wests Tigers in a televised Friday night game, but famously won.

"I got offered the Wests Tigers job after that, but I turned it down, mainly because of the kids' schooling," he said. "But I regretted that decision a bit." Months later, Storm came calling, and the revolution began.

Bellamy said the makeover had been made possible by the attitude of the players. "Over the years, we've weeded out the guys who didn't want to work hard and didn't fit into what we're trying to build here," he said. Matt King and Brett White had spectacularly salvaged lost careers. "Sometimes, all a player needs is a break," said Bellamy. "So do coaches."

Also, Storm had been blessed by the arrival all at once of Crocker, Cronk, Johnson, Smith, Webster and Slater, an improbably rich harvest of juniors. Bellamy borrowed from Sydney coach Paul Roos the idea of a leadership group, but despite parallels between these frontier clubs, he has had little else to do with the Swans. He has met Roos only once.

The Storm has reached the finals in all of Bellamy's four years, and this year is the runaway minor premier. Five more wins would deliver a premiership, only the Storm's second. The Bulldogs remain flag favourites, but perhaps only because of loaded Sydney thinking, and that is changing.

Bellamy is suddenly everyone's favourite coach, which sits uncomfortably with him. "It's all a bit of a fancy world, really," he said. "I like to think I'm doing a good job. But last year, we lost two or three home games on the trot, and people weren't happy. It'll come around again. All I know is that I've got to keep working hard. If I don't, I'll feel guilty. That's what we base our culture on."

Storm's budget, staff and profile have grown. The club has been promised a new stadium by 2009, which has dampened speculation about closing shop in Melbourne. Bellamy's wife and daughter joined him here this year, although his son remains in Brisbane, where he plays rugby union.

Storm remains isolated from league's heartland, overshadowed by AFL and only moderately visible, but Bellamy ? whose football experience has all been in one-team towns ? sees that as an advantage.

"We go about our business flying under the radar a bit," he said. "There's less chance of the players getting distracted. Of course, I like to know what's going on in our game. But I don't need to know everything. I don't particularly need to read the papers about how good we're going."

He does not see himself as an apostle of rugby league, simply coach of Melbourne Storm. Only the scarcity of prime-time television coverage bugs him. "Basically, the footy I watch is who we're playing next week," he said. "That's how I rip into it."

Bellamy said he was recognised more often in Melbourne now, and in Sydney, too. News crews from "up north" visit regularly now, as they have not previously.

Literally, he is growing in distinction. When Storm lost to Manly in a week that coincided with a haircut, he pledged not to have another until Storm lost again.

"I'm really regretting it now," he said after 11 weeks, by which point his hair was longer than it had been since it tumbled down his back as a teenager. But glad as he was to have a cut this week, he will be just as glad not to have another until October.

[Eel 33]

That says a lot of who Craig Bellamy is. Great article.

[Hoppy2007Dragons]

Storm have a lot to thank this man for, if they get the premiership this year, it is well deserved by all.

[mb63]

Great article.The Storm are developing well off the field despite the doubters.

[Coaster]

Great article of a great individual, any man that values learning over his own ego is destined for something special. And he proved that to me by taking the runner job for the Australian team, i dont know of 1 other First grade coach which would even consider that.

[Darren Lockyer]

good article

[Brettymac]

I dont think its coincidence that the now famed "Broncos Slumps" began after he left.... He obviously deserves all the success which comes his way...