Still hurts: why Storm mentor gives Brisbane bellyaches
Joel Gould |
Craig Bellamy is the elephant in the room when it comes to Melbourne’s extraordinary record against Brisbane.
The Broncos head to graveyard central for the clash with the Storm at AAMI Park on Thursday night with their NRL title credentials on the line and a dark past.
The history between the two sides paints a bleak picture for the visitors. The Broncos have not won at AAMI Park for 3268 days. They have won one of their past 17 games against the Storm. Since Brisbane won the 2006 grand final, the Storm have a 33-5 record.
Their greatest players have come and gone, the team lists have changed, but three-time premiership-winning coach Bellamy is the constant presence.
Bellamy was, of course, assistant coach at the Broncos before taking the head coaching job at Melbourne. There is a sense that beating the Broncos is, was and always will be his pet project.
Don’t expect current Storm players to say it, but club legend Scott Hill, whose last game in his stellar career was the 2006 decider, has cut to the chase on the Bellamy versus Broncos narrative.
“It is always good to get one over the place where you’ve come from, and Craig was six years an assistant coach at Brisbane and has a history there,” Hill told AAP
“The Broncos were the last club he was at, and you always want to move forward and become more successful.
“I suppose Craig wants to stay ahead of the club he was at last.
“Maybe 2006 still hurts him. It hurts me every day, and every day I think about it.
“My career was successful, but I never won a premiership. That grand final was my last game at Melbourne and we had been dominant all year but we didn’t get it right on the night.
“I didn’t get another chance. Craig did, but that’s one they got over him and it probably still affects him as well.
“The Broncos are also renowned as the pinnacle organisation in the NRL. To put it over them is always a good way to feel about how you are travelling.”
When Bellamy was assistant to Wayne Bennett he introduced detailed breakdowns of other teams’ strengths and weaknesses, and his ability to pull apart oppositions, particularly Brisbane, has been on-point ever since.
“Craig knows defence wins footy games and if you can nullify a team’s strengths you put yourself in a good position to win games, particularly when you have a good set of attacking weapons like Melbourne still do,” Hill said.
“He has always been very good at that.”
Asked about the Storm record and the Bellamy factor, Brisbane coach Michael Maguire, who was an assistant under Bellamy, talks about his side and what they bring to the table. He wants them to believe they can get the job done, not get bogged down in history.
“We are a different team,” Maguire said.
“I haven’t been here before, so it’s about living in the now.
“We are building how we want to play and we speak internally about how we want to grow as a group, and this is the next opportunity for us to go and play our game and test it against what has been a pretty consistent organisation.
“That’s what they have shown. We are chasing that and very hungry to put ourselves into that space.”
AAP
