Shining Knights coach faces his mentor

Knights coach Adam O’Brien spent more than a decade working under Storm mentor Craig Bellamy. Now he gets to take him on.

Newcastle coach Adam O’Brien did his apprentice under Craig Bellamy in Melbourne

Newcastle coach Adam O’Brien was 12 when he first crossed paths with Craig Bellamy.

“He wouldn’t remember, but he presented me an under-12s best and fairest award,” O’Brien said.

“I have a photo of that. I don’t know where it is. Mum has it. A photo of Bellyache presenting some 12-year-old kid with a best and fairest award and then I ended up working for him.

“The relationship has been longer than he probably knows. We have ended up good friends. Our wives are good friends.

“He spent New Year’s Eve with me up here in Newcastle. We formed a pretty close friendship. I speak to him a couple of times a week usually. I don’t know if we will this week.”

O’Brien spent more than a decade on the coaching staff at Melbourne, cherrypicking the very best of Bellamy over that time.

He left at the end of 2018 to join the Sydney Roosters as an assistant and on Saturday will face Bellamy and the Storm for the first time as a head coach, having led Newcastle to an undefeated start to the season.

Adam O’Brien with Craig Bellamy in 2013

The lessons O’Brien learned in Melbourne have served him and the Knights well.

“The biggest thing for me that he taught me is if you are going to ask the players to be prepared, if you are going to ask the players to be hard working, if you are going to ask them to be thorough, it starts with you,” O’Brien said. “That is your chance to make tackles, that is your chance to defend your tryline. You are in there doing your thing for them.

“I think that is important. There is no point preaching that you want them to be hardworking if you are lazy yourself.

“That always stood out for me — making sure you hold your end of the bargain up.”

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O’Brien’s path to Melbourne owed much to Parramatta coach Brad Arthur. They had an association in Bateman’s Bay and then Cairns. When Arthur joined Melbourne, he encouraged O’Brien to follow the same path.

“Bellyache was the first one to give me a chance,” O’Brien said.

“I didn’t have a profile as a player to give me a start. I had to work my way up with Craig. That is the thing with Bellyache — he always rewards hard work.

“That is what he does with his players. I was certainly the beneficiary of the way Craig manages people. (Melbourne head of football) Frank (Ponissi) is in the same boat. The whole club. The thing for me is they would have had a big say in why I am here too. I imagine when they were asking around about potential candidates, I reckon those guys would have had an input into me getting my job.”

Adam O’Brien leads a Melbourne Storm training session

It has proved sage advice. O’Brien has taken a team that finished last year in turmoil to second spot on the NRL ladder, albeit through only four games.

The Knights could scarcely have been more impressive as they prepare to play one of the competition heavyweights, a side O’Brien knows only too well.

“I am here coaching them — I am one of them now,” he said.

“The players are aware of the amount of time I spent down there. I don’t think they look at me as the ex-Melbourne coach. I think they look at me as their coach now. I know there is more improvement in us. We are a team that needs to prepare with a hard edge every week. We haven’t set those deep foundations that other clubs have had for a long time. We have started well but it is not set in stone for us yet.

“If we want to sit back and listen to the pats on the back, you won’t have that steely edge to build those foundations.

“We have spent some time talking about this as a group — the people you are listening to should be the smallest group of people in your life.

“If you want to listen to all the praise, you better be prepared to listen to the knockers as well because they lie in the same area.

“The people who care about you care about you enough to be brutally honest with you.”