Craig Bellamy confirms talks with Broncos, says he may leave Storm at the end of this season

CRAIG Bellamy has left the door open to a one-year sabbatical from coaching but says he’ll either sign a three-year extension with the Storm or move on at the end of this year.

Coach Craig Bellamy gets off the team bus.

CRAIG Bellamy has left the door open to a one-year sabbatical from coaching but says he’ll either sign a three-year extension with the Storm or move on at the end of this year.

Speaking to the press on Wednesday, Bellamy confirmed what had already been widely reported, that the Storm will not re-sign him on a one-year deal.

Admitting he had spoken to Broncos CEO Paul White, Bellamy said financial terms had not been discussed and no contract had been tabled.

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But he confirmed that he was seriously thinking about a move north and would leave the Storm at the end of this season if that was the path he chose.

“I don’t think the Storm are going to sign me up for one year so if I do move it will be at the end of this year,” Bellamy said.

“The first thing I’ll be doing is deciding whether I stay on at Melbourne or not.

“Depending on what decision I come to there with the Melbourne offer I’ll decide what to do from there.”

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Bellamy said the Storm contract, which would keep him at the club until the end of the 2021 season, had been tabled “about two and a half weeks ago” with his chat with White happening just days later.

He said he hadn’t had time to properly consider the Storm deal because of the club’s busy recent schedule but said he planned to sit down with his family and decide whether or not he would stay on “in the next few weeks” with the NRL season about to take a back seat to the State of Origin series.

While Bellamy may yet stay at Melbourne, if he decides to call it a day it will potentially put him on a collision course with Wayne Bennett and the Broncos’ ideal timeline for a handover.

Speaking to the media earlier on Wednesday, Bennett was adamant he would be coaching Brisbane next season and White backed that stance up, saying “Wayne knows he’s here until 2019”.

But Bellamy was lukewarm at best on the idea of a sabbatical and hinted that if he was to sign with the Broncos the contract needed to start next season.

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“I can’t guarantee what’s going to happen next year, we’ve got another half a year to go here, so that’s all we’re concentrating on at the moment,” Bellamy said.

“ ... You could look at it (a sabbatical) in two ways, it could be refreshing and you could go and have a look at other organisations and pick up some things and we usually do that for two weeks at the end of the year but you’d be able to go into it a little more deeply than what we have at the end of a season.

“But having said that the game evolves very quickly and you could lose touch as well so I can’t answer that question because I’ve never done it.

“If anyone has done it they could probably answer that question better than me.”

For Bellamy to start coaching the Broncos in 2019 Bennett would likely need to be sacked and paid out, a scenario with the potential to spook Brisbane.

Bellamy said he was conscious of the need to be respectful of the seven-time premiership coach throughout the process and was adamant that he had not been in negotiations behind the super coach’s back.

“The last thing I want to be is disrespectful to Wayne, especially this weekend, he’s coaching his 800th game, that’s unbelievable, it’s one hell of a record,” Bellamy said.

“But before I had my chat (with White) I was assured that Wayne knew about the chat so like I say I’m sure me and Wayne will catch up at some stage and have a bit of a chat about things, I don’t know if we’ll chat about this but I was assured that he knew that the chat was happening.”

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Originally published as Craig Bellamy confirms talks with Broncos, says he may leave Storm at the end of this season