How Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy went missing during team’s prep in Townsville
He’s widely regarded as one of the best to ever coach in the NRL, but Storm coach Craig Bellamy had to be bailed out by a Townsville local during a recent mishap in North Queensland.
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Super coach Craig Bellamy might know his way around the football field but a visit to Townsville’s Castle Hill had him stumped.
The information came out on the One Six Seven Podcast; where Melbourne Storm stars Ryan Papenhuyzen and Jahrome Hughes revealed the mishap during a discussion with club great and Maroons legend Cameron Smith in the absence of regular co-host Cameron Munster.
During a discussion about who would be the worst partner in crime is, a nervous Jahrome Hughes stitched up his coach by revealing Bellamy had needed to be rescued by some Townsville locals after getting separated from the rest of the Storm’s coaching staff.
“I’m going to go with Bellyache,” Hughes said.
“When something goes wrong, he’d just get frustrated, he’d start swearing at you – he’s not tech savvy, he’s so bad with his technology.
“He barely carries his phone, he actually got lost on the weekend – I mean, not lost but …”
“How do you get lost in Townsville?” Smith interjected.
“We were playing in Townsville,” Hughes explained.
“The coaching staff went and did Castle Hill – they all went up there and finished, he had a few stairs left and the boys went and looked at the scenery.
“He came back down, he thought they’d gone and left him. He came all the way down, didn’t have his phone or anything.
“He got someone and he just got someone and hitchhiked home – jumped in someone’s car and went back to the Mercure Hotel.”
Smith cheekily asked if his former coach might be in legal trouble after hitchhiking, as it is illegal in Queensland.
“He apparently just asked the guy how far away it is, because he thought he was going to have to walk back,” Hughes said.
“It’s deadset a ten-minute walk,” Smith said.
“You just wrap around the front – there’s one road. He wouldn’t have known.”
The identity of the good Samaritan who rescued the Melbourne Storm coach hasn’t been revealed.
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Originally published as How Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy went missing during team’s prep in Townsville
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