Inside Melbourne Storm’s top secret scouting system
The Storm have an uncanny knack of turning rough diamonds, rejects and unfulfilled potential into proven NRL performers. Here are the seven boxes every recruit must tick.
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This is the top-secret scouting system that Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy has relied upon to turn the Storm into the NRL’s most dominant club of the past decade.
The Courier-Mail can reveal the seven key recruitment pillars that have underpinned the Storm’s surge to nine grand-final appearances in 15 seasons — including Sunday night’s decider against the Panthers at ANZ Stadium.
The Storm have an uncanny knack of turning rough diamonds, rejects and unfulfilled talents into proven NRL performers. It could be argued there is no other club in the game that can match Melbourne’s record of extracting the best of their playing roster.
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But the Storm’s ability to convert potential into performance is no fluke.
Now, Melbourne recruitment boss Paul Bunn, one of the NRL’s most experienced talent-identification chiefs, gives an insight into the values, formulas and non-negotiable traits used by the Storm to ensure they consistently challenge for premierships.
Months, and sometimes years, of statistical and player analysis culminates in a face-to-face meeting where a potential recruit fronts Bellamy and football-operations boss Frank Ponissi to determine if they win a contract.
“We have a proven formula on recruiting players and the results shows our system works,” said Bunn, who joined Melbourne in 2012.
“After being here for nearly a decade, I know the type of player Craig Bellamy wants and what our system requires.”
1. THE COFFEE TEST
This is the term the Storm use to describe the decisive stage of a contract process. A one-hour chat with Bellamy and Ponissi can make or break a player’s Storm career.
“It’s a team effort working out the type of player we want and whether they are the right fit for us,” Bunn says.
“We have checklists and strict requirements on who we sign.
“I will sit down with Craig and Ponissi and put together a dossier on each prospective player. I say here is the vision, here is the scouting report, here is the research.
“The final thing the player has to pass is the meeting with Craig and Frank. We call it ‘The Coffee Test’.
“Craig and Frank will have been briefed on the player’s history, family and background. Then it’s time to meet face-to-face.
“Sometimes after the chat, Craig has walked out and said, ‘No. He won’t fit in here, and as a recruiter I have to respect that.”
2. ABILITY - JOSH ADDO-CARR
Addo-Carr has scored 73 tries from 95 games at the Storm. After previous stints at Cronulla and Wests Tigers, the Storm turned Addo-Carr into a Test and NSW Origin winger.
“There was this weird perception of Josh,” Bunn said. “He is seen as a wayward or loose character but Josh is very driven to succeed.
“Any guy in the NRL must have some ability, but he must also fit into our team environment.
“You will not find one player at our club from Cam Smith to the youngest player down who isn’t a team player. There are no selfish people.
“With Josh Addo-Carr, we tracked him for two years.
“As part of my due diligence, I rang Wally Carr, an Aboriginal elder and Josh’s grandfather.
“Everyone was telling me Josh was a risky buy, but he embraced the Storm from the moment he walked in the door. Wally said, ‘Don’t listen to the stories about Josh. He will make it in Melbourne’. He was right.”
3. COMPETITVENESS - RYAN PAPENHUYZEN
Stuck behind James Tedesco at the Tigers, Papenhuyzen has become a fullback star at the Storm.
“We like guys who compete and that sums up ‘Paps’,” Bunn said.
“Craig watched footage of Ryan in junior games. We were really excited because it wasn’t just his speed. He has this bloody tenaciousness and competitiveness. He wanted to be in all the big moments of the game and Craig and Frank loved his desire.
“He was the guy who we thought could follow in the footsteps of Billy Slater.”
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4. WORK ETHIC - TINO FA’ASUAMALEAUI
The 20-year-old has been a revelation this year. The Storm liked his blue-collar background, having worked on the family farm in Gympie.
“He is an outstanding young man,” Benn said. “Dane Campbell (former Storm assistant recruiter) came to me and said, ‘I think this Tino kid can play, his path is blocked at the Broncos, let’s have a crack at him’.
“We tracked him for a six-week period and liked what we saw. We set up a meeting with Craig and we all thought he was a gem of a kid. He had a work ethic about him having grown up on a farm in Gympie and he was keen to learn.”
5. RESPECT - CAMERON MUNSTER
Munster was signed at 17 as a possible successor to Billy Slater. He is now one of the NRL’s top 10 players, having played Origin and Test football as a five-eighth.
“We have some larrikins in our team like Munster but they all have a great respect,” Bunn said.
“We want to see respect for themselves, their teammates and their family.
“The Storm don’t want negative people. We don’t sign people who are going to challenge authority all the time to the point where it puts a negative spin on your team.
“There are some players who want to go against the system. It might work elsewhere, but not at the Storm.”
6. GRATEFUL - JUSTIN OLAM
The quietly-spoken Olam has come from a village in Papua New Guinea to become a tackle-busting brute in the Storm centres.
“When we look for a player, we want to see that they are grateful,” Bunn said.
“Justin Olam is a perfect example.
“I watched videos of him playing in the Intrust Super Cup with PNG Hunters and I thought this bloke can go to the next level.
“When he came into our feeder system, he always had a smile on his face. He has a great spirit about him. That’s hugely important in a team environment.”
7. PASSION - BRANDON SMITH
Poached from the Cowboys under-20s, Smith is Melbourne’s super-sub with a ferocious desire to win.
“They have to be able to train if they want to enter our doors. They need a passion for the game,” Bunn said.
“If the game doesn’t mean a lot to them, they aren’t wanted. We don’t want to be trying to constantly motivate blokes to want to succeed.
“We signed Brandon Smith from the Cowboys. I watched him play 10 games before we made a move. We were putting a succession plan in place for Cameron Smith when he retired, so we wanted two hookers of NRL standard.
“Brandon’s passion and tenacity is incredible.”
REDEMPTION - BRENKO LEE
The Storm are not afraid to hand out second or third chances. Just ask Brenko Lee, who had failed stints at three clubs before finding his feet this season in the Storm centres.
“Brenko was just about gone as an NRL player,” Bunn said.
“He had been to a few clubs and he even tried his hand in rugby union and it didn’t work for him. His agent called us and we said let’s put him at our feeder club Easts Tigers and get a read on him.
“We spoke to his Tigers coach Craig Hodges and he said he’s rough around the edges but he is a good person.
“We held off, then decided let’s give him a trial contract and make him work for it. The moment we met Brenko, we felt he had matured enough. He realised it was the last-chance saloon.
“Some guys haven’t met our formula and they have gone on to play good footy at other NRL clubs. So I’m not saying our method is the only one that works, but we just have our system and what we believe works for us.”
Originally published as Inside Melbourne Storm’s top secret scouting system