NRL 2021: Broncos should abort pursuit of Storm coach Craig Bellamy

The Broncos would love to sign Craig Bellamy but he is the right man for the wrong job and the club must stop chasing his signature, Robert Craddock writes.

Kotoni Staggs won’t be the NRL’s latest million-dollar man. Picture: Bradley Kanaris/Getty

The Broncos will come face-to-face with super coach Craig Bellamy this week but the time has come to stop chasing his signature.

When News Corp broke the news last September the Broncos would offer Bellamy a 10-year deal to be a coaching director sitting above Kevin Walters it seemed one of the great signing coups of the modern era was underway.

But the Bellamy-Walters ticket, while sounding superb, is actually not fair on either man.

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When the Broncos offer came to light there were romantic flashbacks to the old days when Walters was an assistant to master coach Bellamy in Melbourne and learnt much about the game’s finer points from a man he greatly admires.

Like the day Bellamy sent Walters to a ground 24 hours before a 3pm start to see where the sun was positioned so the Storm could plan bombing raids for the next day.

Craig Bellamy will meet with the Broncos. Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty

But as the months grind on and Bellamy quite rightly takes time to decide his final move in rugby league the reality has set in that this is a case of the right man being offered the wrong job at the wrong time.

Had Bellamy and Walters started together it might have been different but the thought of Bellamy being parachuted in to look over Walters shoulder half way through his tenure for next season, changing the entire chain of command, just seems awkward.

Having given Walters a relatively short two-year deal, the Broncos must at least give the coach the chance to rise or fall on his own merit.

In Melbourne, Bellamy controls everything from his side’s left field defence to the colour of their socks so you are effectively asking him to change and challenge his entire personality – at age 61 - by moving one step away from the action.

Kevin Walters needs time to be his own man. Picture: Liam Kidston.

Coaching directors are great in theory but when has one ever worked?

In fact, when have they ever been tried?

Barely ever is the answer because rugby league clubs know, even if you had Barack Obama in charge of culture, only one big voice really matters – the head coach.

As great a coach as Phil Gould was, his presence in a football general manager at Penrith made coach Anthony Griffin uncomfortable and eventually they fell out even though both men were simply trying to do their best.

Bellamy was going to be charged with changing Brisbane’s culture but that is the head coach’s job.

BUMPER DEAL

No matter where he play next season – probably at the Broncos – boom centre Kotoni Staggs will be well paid but free of one key burden.

Offers for Staggs are believed to have reached a high water mark of around $800,000 per year which means he will not be the game’s next million dollar-a-season player.

Kotoni Staggs won’t be the NRL’s latest million-dollar man. Picture: Bradley Kanaris/Getty

Surely a part of him would love the extra cash. But as Ash Taylor, Ben Hunt and Anthony Milford can attest to, the pressure of being dubbed a Million Dollar Man can be such that several seven figure stars have said privately they will relish being free of that burden when their next contract is signed for a much smaller fee.

BENJI STRAIGHT-TALK

Benji Marshall may have tap-dancing feet on the field but runs a strong, direct line off it.

Marshall, playing off the bench for the Rabbitohs, has impressed moving into a panellist’s role with Fox League and his blunt assessment of the hatred between the Roosters and Souths and that Adam Reynolds would have to seriously look at shifting clubs showed he is prepared to say what he thinks.