The Great Redeemer

As far as coaches go, there may be some as good, but none better than this bloke.

I first met Craig Bellamy, coach of the Melbourne Storm rugby league team, while waiting for a ferry at Milsons Point in 2008. He was super fit, self-assured, and dripping with decency. His eyes didn’t deviate once for the whole time we spoke.

It was in stark contrast to the man they call ‘Bellyache’ who I had watched for years on TV. From a distance, he gives the impression he would rather fight you for a feed than you shout him. His mouth as rough as five miles of bad road.

But his players love him to distraction, and for good reason.

This weekend Bellamy fronts up for his sixth grand final in eleven years. But it hasn’t been easy for him. He got his break into coaching first grade in 2003 at a club most other coaches (and players) didn’t want a bar of and built it into a powerhouse. Then the club was decimated in 2010 by a salary cap scandal and he had to start over again. Two years later he emerged once more and won the 2012 NRL premiership.

The Man Manager
Bellamy’s genius extends way beyond his coaching skills, it reaches right over into his brilliant man management skills.

In particular, he is well known for resuscitating player’s careers who have been thrown onto the scrap heap all banged up and broken down. Most of them past their use-by date, supposedly. But not in Bellamy’s eyes.

To test a player’s desire for a second chance, he sends them to work on a building site for a whole month with one directive for the employer – work them like dogs! Then after work, the player must front up for training and complete the full work load being undertaken by the other players, who are not working. This would be torture, especially during the off-season when work loads are greatest, more so than the season proper!

Then, at the end of the month he pulls the player in to ask him one question…

“Would you prefer to work like a dog for $50,000pa or the opportunity to play for $250,000pa”?

The answer is obvious and it immediately brings everything into sharp focus. It’s also transformative. In an era where the younger generation seek entitlements, he suggests gratitude instead. And it works.

As a player, Bellamy wasn’t the most talented player around but he understood the value of maintaining high personal standards. Simply put, he was a workaholic and tougher than a two dollar steak. He coaches the same way. He’s at his desk by 6am every morning and sometimes doesn’t leave before midnight. He thrives on continually looking for that extra one percent.

He also puts similar demands on his players because he knows deep down young men (and women) crave accountability. He also knows that happiness comes from progress and the only way to achieve that end is to continue raising the bar – win, lose or draw.

He’s old school too. He doesn’t care if a player is Gen Y, Gen Z or Gen whatever, he just knows that better people make better players and therefore everyone must toe the line. Not surprisingly, you rarely see his players in trouble off field either.

But you can’t buy a culture like that. You have to sow and reap, sow and reap for a few seasons until eventually, the flowers overwhelm the weeds.

However, as a former NSW State of Origin coach, he was a dismal failure. But in a paradoxical way, I think his record is testimony to his coaching style. He’s not a sugar hit type of coach, he’s the slow burn type who likes to spend a lot of time working with his players and getting the very best out of them.

If he was a chef, I reckon his signature dish would be a leg of lamb slow cooked for fourteen hours on ninety degrees. For such an intense guy he knows the value of patience and he’s prepared to work and wait. He’s got the perfect nick name for a restaurant too, ‘Bellyache’. He’d pack the joint.

Craig Bellamy doesn’t just want to build successful teams, he wants to grow and develop great young men. History has proven that. As a coach, his signature dish is very simple – honest hard work, the strictest discipline, tough love and gratitude.

He’s the great redeemer.

Have a great weekend!

Adam

P.s. For all the Sharkies fan’s out there, I hold Shane Flannagan in similar regard to Bellamy, especially in light of what the club has gone through in recent years…ASADA, near bankruptcy, no sponsors and other off field dramas. He’s a great coach and a very nice guy and I hope for his sake (and the club’s) he’s tenure at the club is similar to Bellamy’s.

Good luck on Sunday!