NRL 2021: Why Melbourne Storm had to keep Craig Bellamy at all costs | Paul Kent

Craig Bellamy staying at the Storm is a massive blow to Melbourne’s rivals, who are failing to replicate his success, PAUL KENT writes.

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA - OCTOBER 03: Craig Bellamy, coach of the Storm, celebrates after the NRL Qualifying Final match between the Melbourne Storm and the Parramatta Eels at Suncorp Stadium on October 03, 2020 in Brisbane, Australia. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

So far as best recollections go the phrase was first uttered by Kevin Sheedy, the old AFL coach who liked to take a thought and pull it apart, re-examine it from all angles, and then often put it back together better than it was originally intended.

About the time when sport was starting to get serious in this country Sheedy looked at what was happening in the AFL and the NRL, with the introduction of their salary caps to accompany their growing pains, and he matched it up against the business of winning around the world.

“Sooner or later,” he more or less said, “the money in sport will come for the tactics.”

Sheedy was pointing out that with teams limited to spending the same amount on players as all their rivals, which some argued was unconstitutional, and so secretly adhere to such principles today, that future money would come for the coaches who can best maximise how that money is spent.

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Kevin Sheedy knew that coaches were where the true value in football lied. Picture: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

The point was never more proven than when Melbourne Storm, after a year spent worrying what might happen to their franchise when Craig Bellamy retired or, worse, signed with Brisbane, agreed to pay Bellamy whatever he wants and let him do whatever he wanted in order to remain at the club.

It won’t be found in any manual, but it was supremely intelligent management from the Storm bosses.

As of Tuesday, Bellamy is at the Storm for anywhere up to five years, if he so decides, and in that time will be head coach or won’t be, or might take over the head of football job or might not, whatever he sees fit.

Equally as important, Bellamy will not be heading up any 17th franchise in Brisbane or taking a head of football role at Brisbane or Cronulla, who also showed considerable interest in securing Bellamy in these last 12 months.

His re-appointment comes in the same month Canterbury hired Phil Gould on considerable money, certainly more than the coach Trent Barrett, to run their football program, and with the intention of lifting the Bulldogs from the bottom of the ladder, where they are currently anchored.

The Storm realised keeping coach Craig Bellamy — at any cost — was the smart play for their success. Picture: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

Gould is thriving in the economy Sheedy predicted, the economy of knowledge.

Unable to secure Bellamy in their head of football role last year, the Sharks also broke the parallel thought model and hired Sydney Roosters assistant Craig Fitzgibbon to take over as head coach in 2022.

Each club is paying for football intelligence, with varying degrees of risk according to what their club has and where they are coming from.

Bellamy is the only sure bet in the game.

Warren Ryan changed the game by inventing an entirely new template for how it was played way back in the early 1980s. It was a system, though, that others were able to take away and study and, in some cases, even improve on.

The entire game today is played under that template, with improvements.

Nobody can be sure what contribution Bellamy has made in this space except that, whatever it is, he sits at the very top.

Fitzgibbon has made his intentions clear at the Sharks and it is nothing to do with talent and more to do with character and attitude, with a little value thrown in.

Josh Dugan and Andrew Fifita will not be re-signed, neither will Aaron Woods, while Matt Moylan has accepted a massive reduction and Shaun Johnson is heading back to the Warriors.

In their place Fitzgibbon has signed Nicho Hynes and Dale Finucane from Melbourne, with Cameron McInnes already committed.

Phil Gould is thriving in the economy of knowledge. Picture: Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images

Fitzgibbon is beginning a Cultural Revolution at Cronulla and it begins with Storm players.

Ben Ikin now runs the Broncos football program but well before he took the job, and while vacationing from NRL360, he spent several summers flying around the country with Bellamy seated next to him for a series of highly lucrative public speaking engagements.

Ikin, who retains a curious mind, recognised the opportunity this unrestricted access next to Bellamy was offering and set about interrupting Bellamy from his Big League magazine to interrogate him on all the important matters, like what makes a successful football club.

The first clue should have been that it was the Big League magazine that Ikin was keeping Bellamy from and not some dusty biography of Sir Alex or The Art of Coaching.

Incoming Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon. Picture: John Grainger

Sadly the information was not as forthcoming as a bookworm like Ikin had hoped.

The more questions he asked the more plain were the answers that came back until, finally, Ikin was hit with the realisation that Bellamy was not actually keeping his secrets from him and that this was how simply Bellamy thought.

Combine that with other outstanding qualities not found in the manuals, like how much he authentically cares for his players, and it adds up to an indecent amount of success.

It was a knowledge the Storm acknowledged and paid for on Tuesday, re-signing a coach that gets the job done like no other.

And with that, Bellamy went back to his Big League magazine while Ikin went back to his copy of Harry Potter.