‘Hope I don’t stuff this up’: Bellamy’s forgotten GF cameo and how his former club let him slip

Three-time premiership winner Craig Bellamy is one of the NRL’s most successful coaches but from his playing career to salary cap scandals, his journey has not always been smooth sailing – and he’s revealed it may be over after next season.

“I think I’m going to go next year. It’s the last year of my contract next year so I’m not going to say that that’s definitely it, but I’m thinking it will be,” the Melbourne Storm coach said on Fox League’s Face to Face, available on Fox Sports and Kayo Sports.

Despite the Storm’s great successes over Bellamy’s 22 years at the helm, with another preliminary final looming on Friday, it’s impossible to forget the 2010 salary cap scandal that rocked the NRL world.

Following the Storm being found guilty of cheating the salary cap, the club was stripped of their 2007 and 2009 premiership titles, fined $1.6 million and received no points during what was an emotionally gruelling 2010 season for Storm players.

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“Other than death in the family it’s probably the most difficult time I’ve been through,” Bellamy said.

“We were going to away games and you know we were getting off the bus and players were getting spit at and throwing cans of beer at us and it was horrible times,” he said.

“I was 50-odd so I’d been through a few things in my life, but some of them younger guys, it was horrible for them.”

Coming away from this situation was one of Bellamy’s toughest feats as a coach, explaining he had no plan other than to keep in the “Big Four”, in Cooper Cronk, Billy Slater, Cameron Smith and Greg Inglis. He kept all but Inglis and had to completely recruit from there, losing 13 players in total.

Remarkably, Melbourne then topped the ladder in 2011 and won the premiership in 2012.

“That was the hardest pre-season that I’ve ever been involved in,” Bellamy said.

“We just worked them really hard, they were really fit, strong and in 2011, we won the minor premiership. To me, that’s probably the best result we’ve had since I’ve been here.”

Bellamy has continued to coach new talent into powerful forces, such as last year’s Dally M Medallist Jahrome Hughes.

Beginning his career with one-off first grade games for the Titans and Cowboys, Hughes could have easily become lost, yet Bellamy saw something special and coached the halfback into one of the league’s biggest players.

“I’m sure we helped Jahrome along but the amount of work he put in, and his attitude to the rest of the players and really grabbing that opportunity … He was just really hungry to be successful we just gave him the opportunity,” he said.

Growing up around the bush, Bellamy always enjoyed the outdoors and hoped to pursue sports. Following the sudden death of his father in a workplace accident he was more passionate than ever to make a real career out of rugby league, beginning his monumental coaching career by playing the game.

“He was a great man, my dad, and a great supporter of my footy,” he said.

Bellamy joined the Canberra Raiders as a player in 1982, contributing to the Raiders’ premiership-winning seasons in 1989 and 1990 in a fine 150-game playing career that has been overshadowed by his legendary coaching achievements.

While Bellamy did not play in the 1989 decider he recalled a dramatic turn of events in 1990 when he captained the Raiders’ reserve grade side in a grand final defeat, then came on off the bench with six minutes as the first grade team sealed an 18-14 victory over the Panthers.

“We (the reserve grade side) were the only (Raiders) side to get beaten that day,” Bellamy said.

“I was that disappointed in getting beat, and with six or seven minuts to go, Sheensy (Raiders coach Tim Sheens) sent the message down, ‘tell Craig to warm up he’s going on’.

“And I’m going ‘oh geez, I hope I don’t stuff this up’. I think we were only about four in front.

“It was really great of him to do that because he didn’t have to do that for me.

“…. I am fortunate I had the time I had there. I played with a lot of wonderful players, had a lot of wonderful coaches.”

It was after this that Bellamy discovered his true passion of coaching.

Following the 1990 premiership, Bellamy played as a captain/coach for Turvey Park in Wagga Wagga, his first taste of the coaching experience.

“I think I was more interested in staying involved in the game in the game than actually being a coach,” he said. “I wouldn’t be smart enough to be a footy manager or a CEO or anything.”

Bellamy then found himself assistant coaching for the Brisbane Broncos, where he took lessons from his former coach Don Furner into his role under iconic coach Wayne Bennett.

“The one thing I learned was how different they were and how they coached,” he recalled.

Alongside Bennett, Bellamy led the Broncos to two premierships in 1998 and 2000, giving him his first real taste of coaching success.

Bellamy would then go on to begin his historic 22-year coaching run with the Melbourne Storm in 2003, however his career could have taken a different trajectory had Matthew Elliott not beaten him to a gig at the last minute.

Bellamy went for an interview with Canberra after finishing with the Broncos and after what he felt was a successful interview, was told he was almost sure to get the job.

Yet shortly after, Elliott was said to have impressed the team more and was offered the job, leading Bellamy to Melbourne.

When he was offered another interview with the Raiders the next year, he decided he was happy at the Storm.

“I was really happy here and thought we had a pretty good team here, so I stayed,” he said.

Emerging as one of the younger clubs in the NRL and having won the title under Chris Anderson in their second season (1999), the Storm quickly made their presence known and have continued to dominate, with Bellamy taking his team to the finals in 22 of his 23 seasons, including 10 grand finals.

The Storm are currently preparing to enter a preliminary final for the third year in a row, and hope to take hope their sixth grand final win under Bellamy; though it would only be a fourth official premiership, due to the stripped titles.

Bellamy plans to keep his coaching style as “normal as possible” and won’t be changing much in what has been a successful formula during 2025.

With the seven-time Dally M Coach of the Year again renewing for one more season on his coaching contract, Bellamy says 2026 may be his last year coaching the Storm; although with over two decades at the club and his genius as sharp as ever, he may not be done just yet.