Craig Bellamy | Matty's First Ever Podcast!

Matty Johns· Host0:00

This is my first podcast, and a pretty good one. First up, I catch up with iconic Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy, uh, just ahead of his 500th NRL game coach. Quite unbelievable. But it's not all about winning titles or, or the great players he's coached. I wanna talk about his, his playing career and his career as assistant coach under Tim Sheens and, uh, and Wayne Bennett. The things that have really shaped the man he is today. Enjoy. Craig.

Craig Bellamy· Guest0:26

Good to see you, mate.

Matty Johns· Host0:28

How you going, mate?

Craig Bellamy· Guest0:28

Yeah, I'm going okay. Yeah, yeah.

Matty Johns· Host0:30

Season number 20 here.

Craig Bellamy· Guest0:31

Yep.

Matty Johns· Host0:32

Made 498 games, coach. Where, when you, when you c- came in in 2003, if someone said, "You're gonna have 10 years here," would you have been thrilled?

Craig Bellamy· Guest0:42

Yeah, without a doubt. Like, that, that was obviously me first head coaching job and, um, you know, there was a bit of a, I suppose, a record around then. There was... You know, it didn't take much to get sacked. It didn't take much to get, you know, changed over and I, I didn't sort of think too much about that, just decided to put, you know, put me head down and then do the best I can and, and see what happens.

Matty Johns· Host1:04

Mate, I don't wanna talk today about sorta year by year with the Storm and all the, all the great players, because- Mm ... you know, you've spoken about that a thousand times. But how would Craig Bellamy the coach describe Craig Bellamy the player?

Craig Bellamy· Guest1:17

A hard trier? [laughs] That'd be the nicest thing they'd probably say about me as a player, I reckon. But yeah, like I say, I, I, um, yeah, I wasn't a very skillful player. I wasn't very big