Craig Bellamy took exception to how his players treated Andrew Fifita

STORM coach Craig Bellamy took aim at his players for their treatment of Andrew Fifita on Saturday night, and it reveals a delicious irony.

Fifita’s come under fire for supporting Kieran Loveridge.

DEFINING irony is pretty damn hard, so the editors of the Oxford Dictionary would do well to point people in this direction when looking the word up.

The Melbourne Storm beat the Cronulla Sharks 26-6 on Saturday night to claim the 2016 NRL minor premiership. Not only did the match determine who finished atop the table, it also saw Andrew Fifita step onto the field for the first time since it was revealed he had been wearing a public message of support for convicted killer Kieran Loveridge.

Loveridge is serving a 10-year prison sentence for killing Thomas Kelly with a coward punch in Sydney’s Kings Cross in 2012, and on at least seven occasions this year Fifita has worn strapping with “F.K.L” — For Kieran Loveridge — written on it.

The Melbourne crowd booed Fifita every time he touched the ball, but one moment involving the 27-year-old left Storm coach Craig Bellamy fuming at his own players.

When the front-rower knocked on at the end of the game, Storm pair Jordan McLean and Cheyse Blair ruffled his hair to mock him for his mistake. Bellamy wasn’t having a bar of it.

“That’s not what we’re about and I don’t like to see those things in the game,” Bellamy said. “It shows a lack of respect for the opposition

“Whoever those guys were, I’ll be having a chat to them.”

Clearly, sportsmanship is highly valued by the veteran coach, and he expects his players to feel the same.

Rewind a week to Cameron Smith’s comments after his side lost to Brisbane, and a similar theme emerges.

Fifita was roundly booed by the Melbourne crowd.

Melbourne were marched 10m after the normally unflappable Smith lost it at the ref for penalising his side when Broncos pivot Anthony Milford deliberately threw a pass into an offside Storm player from dummy half.

Smith’s teammate knew he was offside after making a tackle and was trying to make himself a small target, staying down on the ground so as not to interfere with the play, but Milford’s cheek bluffed the man with the whistle.

On the Monday after the game, Smith said something similar to Bellamy about certain things not belonging in rugby league.

“(There were) some things in our game the other night which I think most people would say was playing against the spirit of the game,” Smith said.

“The players will get away with it if the referees keep giving them opportunities to do so.”

So one week Smith is complaining about being on the wrong end of some poor sportsmanship, and the week after his coach is criticising his own players for the same thing.

That’s irony for you.

There’s no suggestion Fifita received any special attention from Blair and McLean because of his high profile during the week. Rubbing opponents’ noses in an error has become commonplace in the NRL, and Fifita himself has been guilty of it in the past.

The Melbourne brains trust.

During the Round 21 match between the Gold Coast Titans and the Sharks that ended in a draw in Queensland, Fifita had a go at Greg Bird when the NSW veteran conceded a penalty. After seeing Fifita’s display, rugby league legend Peter Sterling had a message for the big bopper and anyone else who wanted to ridicule opponents for their mistakes — shut up and play.

“I’m sorry, there are some players in the game who deadset need to have one put on their chin,” Sterling said on Triple M.

“There are some players involved in this game who start talking when something goes wrong against their opponents. They just need one on their chin.”

The ex-Eel tried to clarify he wasn’t speaking just about Fifita, but his fellow commentators laughed, clearly not believing him.

“I just like actions to do the talking. There’s a few that I would just prefer they did something great and didn’t have to carry on,” he said.

“I find it really distasteful when there’s verbal that goes on after mistakes are made or something happens ... I like the silent assassins.”

Fifita has since issued a statement apologising to the Kelly family for his public support of Loveridge, and spoke later about how he never intended to hurt them.

“I’m heartbroken to think that I could or have upset the Kelly family,” Fifita told Fairfax Media. “That is the last thing I want to do. I wish I could stand in front of them and say I was sorry.

“Upsetting the Kelly family was never what I set out to do — they’ve been through enough. I was there in the courtroom, I know what he (Loveridge) did. I could feel the pain of the Kelly family. As a dad, I’d hate to go through that.”

Originally published as Craig Bellamy took exception to how his players treated Andrew Fifita