NRL 2024: Inside story of how Brisbane Broncos slipped up chance to have Craig Bellamy as successor to Wayne Bennett
It’s the sliding doors moment that cost Brisbane the signing of Craig Bellamy and put Melbourne on the path to a two-decade dynasty. See the inside story of how the Broncos botched their Wayne Bennett succession plan.
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It was the sliding doors moment that cost the Broncos the marquee signing of Craig Bellamy – and put Melbourne on the path to a two-decade dynasty.
Spool back to 2008.
Wayne Bennett is leaving the Broncos, two years after breaking Bellamy’s heart in the Storm coach’s maiden NRL grand final appearance, and Brisbane are on the chase for his successor.
Bennett has signed with the Dragons. How on earth do you replace the supercoach?
Why not target the man who worked beside him for five years at the Broncos, driving the conditioning standards that delivered Brisbane two titles in 1998 and 2000.
But Bellamy was more than a fitness guru for Bennett. He became a self-styled secret weapon. Bennett used to worry only about getting Brisbane’s preparations right.
The opposition mattered little. With his stable of superstars like Langer, Sailor, Walters, Tallis and Renouf, if Brisbane were in the mood, few stopped them.
Bellamy had an idea to take the Broncos juggernaut to another level.
What about studying the other team? So he did. He would spend hours analysing the opposition, cutting up videos using old VHS tapes.
Pressing stop, fast forward, rewind and record. Writing down notes.
Old-world technology that took hours to navigate compared to minutes with the state-of-the-art software available to today’s NRL coaches.
Bellamy was ahead of his time. Broncos bosses knew it. So when the hunt began, Bellamy was the obvious successor. The right fit. The key was getting the deal done.
By virtue of his history with Bennett, Bellamy had a soft spot in his heart for Brisbane.
If he would ever leave the Storm, this was the club. The mighty Broncos. Rugby league’s glamour club. Queensland’s flagship sporting team.
The talks were as smooth as they were promising. Incredibly, Brisbane were on the verge of their big scalp. Bellamy had one foot out the door at Melbourne.
There was just one final meeting with the Broncos board to seal the deal for the next supercoach to lead Brisbane into a bold new era after Wayne’s World.
In a split-second, the Melbourne heist sensationally unravelled.
“In 2008, they got real close,” Bellamy told Fox Sports’ Matty Johns ahead of his 10th grand final in Sunday night’s decider against Penrith at Sydney’s Accor Stadium.
“But … there were a couple of little things that changed it.”
Bellamy is too humble, and too diplomatic, to prise open old wounds over the Broncos blunder that botched the Bennett succession plan.
But 16 years later, for the first time, the Bellamy-to-Broncos backstory can be laid bare.
“So in 2008, Craig meets with them and basically decides, ‘Yep, I’m going to the Broncos’,” Johns, one of Bellamy’s most treasured rugby league allies, tells this masthead.
“He met with the board to finalise the deal.
“As the meeting was concluding, one of the board members said words to the effect of, ‘Just letting you know, you won’t have the same power here as the old bloke (Bennett) who is leaving’.
“The feeling from the Broncos was that Wayne had too much control.
“The Broncos didn’t want Craig to have the same power over them that Wayne had and that was one of the closing comments from a board member.”
Disaster. Bellamy’s heart sank. Talk about air going out of the celebratory balloon. The genie had to be shoved back into the (Storm) bottle.
“That was the end for Craig,” Johns says.
“He went away and had a think about whether to still go to the Broncos, but in his heart, he felt Brisbane were never going to be his type of club.
“After that meeting, Craig said, ‘No, I’m staying in Melbourne.”
Despite the negotiating gaffe in Red Hill’s corridors of power, there was always a sense Bellamy would end up back at the Broncos. They persisted.
Brisbane tried at least two more times with poaching attempts, including in 2018, when Bennett was sacked following his second stint at the Broncos.
Then-Broncos CEO Paul White had preliminary talks with Bellamy, but the chat never really gathered any steam, prompting the Brisbane boss to change course and sign Anthony Seibold to a five-year deal.
When Seibold was terminated following Brisbane’s wooden-spoon debacle in 2020, the Broncos went harder again. They offered Bellamy a mammoth 10-year deal, plus a job for his son, if required, in a desperate bid to get their man.
But after 20 years entrenched at a Melbourne club that was thriving on Bellamy’s cultural bedrock, the horse had well and truly bolted.
Kevin Walters, Bellamy’s mate of 35 years, was appointed as Seibold’s successor.
But it’s hard not to surmise ‘Bellyache’ would have kept the Broncos rolling as the type of juggernaut he has constructed at Melbourne.
Since Bellamy’s big-dance heartbreak in 2006, he has reached another nine grand finals and won five premierships for the Storm, two of which were stripped due to salary-cap breaches in 2007 and 2009.
Brisbane, mired in a 19-year title drought, have had a duck egg since 2006.
“No doubt he would have won premierships with the Broncos,” Johns said.
“It’s not just what he’s got with his work ethic, it’s the players he would have attracted as well.
“I believe one or two of those great Storm players would have broken away too and gone with him to the Broncos.
“Greg Inglis almost went to the Broncos and I believe ‘GI’ would have gone if Craig was there, instead of South Sydney.
“Craig would have been the perfect fit for the Broncos.
“It could easily have been the Broncos versus Penrith this Sunday and we would have been talking about the Broncos building a dynasty like Bellamy has at the Storm.”
While the Broncos ship has sailed, Bellamy will always have a fondness for his career-shaping stint at Red Hill. He chuckles at how he kept himself busy by virtually creating another role for himself as Bennett’s tactical analyst.
“The five years I had at the Broncos were really enjoyable. I loved my time there,” Bellamy said.
“They’ll always have a special place in my heart as well.
“I was busy enough in pre-season training the guys but during the actual season, Wayne took over more as coach and I didn’t have that much to do.
“Wayne didn’t have any assistant coaches then, he just did it on his own, and the strange thing was that he never did any work on the opposition.
“I used to give him some notes. One day I went to him and said, ‘Hey Wayne, why don’t you watch any opposition or give the players anything on the other team?’.
“He gave me that Clint Eastwood stare and said, ‘Craig, if we play good, the opposition is going to have to play bloody good to beat us’ … and then he walked away.
“So I just started doing stuff on the opposition and that’s how I ended up being some sort of coach.”
Bellamy has no regrets about the Broncos itch many thought he would want to scratch.
“I remember when Wayne first left. I felt a bit sad because it felt like his club and then he left and it was like, ‘Jesus, that’s sad’,” Bellamy says.
“I could have quite easily ended up back there, but I will always be appreciative of the Storm and how John Ribot (former Melbourne supremo) gave me my first chance as a head coach.
“Even in the tough times here, Melbourne have always supported me and showed faith in me in the tough times as a footy club.”
Melbourne chairman Matt Tripp concedes there were a few nerves over Brisbane’s poaching threats in recent years, but remains confident Bellamy will retire at the Storm.
“Naturally, the Broncos were a threat because he had a bit of history with Brisbane and they are a big club, so they have pulling power,” Tripp said.
“But the board here has always backed Craig and you can’t underestimate the power of what he has built here, because continuity creates consistency.
“I’m not sure of many coaching records around the world like his.
“The support he’s got from the playing group is as strong as it’s ever been and, to be honest, I don’t think he has ever coached better than he is right now.
“If someone came to me and said, ‘I’ll get you a coach who will take your club to a grand final every second year for the next 20 years, you’d lock them up, wouldn’t you?”
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