KICKOFF: Greatness beckons for Bellamy

With all the attention that Billy Slater’s judiciary hearing and Cooper Cronk’s bung shoulder have grabbed, talk about the actual match itself has largely been sidelined.

Looking back, Slater’s hearing may prove a blessing in disguise for the Storm. Slater’s more than capable of dealing with the stress and scrutiny that allowed the rest of the squad to fly under the radar for the first four days of an eight-day build up.

It’s also minimised talk around the fractured relationship between Cameron Smith and Cronk, though that will likely ramp up in the coming days. 

What’s also not been discussed as much as it could have, and should have, is the achievement coach Craig Bellamy is closing in on. To be the first coach to win back to back premierships would cement him as the best coach of the NRL era.

It seems a simple conclusion given his consistency and longevity. Those numbers speak for themselves – 421 games with a 68 per cent winning ratio, 24 wins in 32 finals matches, six minor premierships mount a compelling case.

However, in the broader sense, examining his wider legacy is not so simple. It of course goes back to the two premierships Melbourne had stripped for salary cap breaches. The scratching of two premierships off his resume was not his own doing, but they remain the asterisk at the bottom of it.

In the near decade since, the Storm have won two premierships, three minor premierships and finished outside the top four just once (their 2010 wooden spoon year aside).

Bellamy’s efforts in rebuilding the club to the powerhouse it remains has returned him to the top of the coaching pile. A win on Sunday would remove that asterisk. 

The fact back to back crowns hasn’t been achieved in two decades is illustrative enough of how huge the achievement would be.

Secondly, his roster this year is demonstrably inferior – on paper – to the one he had at his disposal in 2017. It’s that fact that feeds into the final, and most intriguing, factor.

It’s fundamentally flawed, but there are still those who make the ‘anyone could coach the big three’ argument. All four premierships (including the two that were stripped) came with arguably the most celebrated rugby league trio ever on deck.

Grand final losses in 2008 and 2016 came without Smith and Slater respectively. To overcome the loss of Cronk – ironically against a side likely to be without him this week – and claim that second straight title a season later would be enough to throw off the shadow those stripped premierships have cast over his legacy.

In one of those great ironies rugby league has a habit of tossing up, winning without Cronk (should the Roosters have to) shapes as a major test of his counterpart Trent Robinson’s credentials. 

It’s hard to imagine a coach who won a premiership in his first season could be under pressure but that was the case coming into this season. In 2013, Robinson had undoubtedly the best roster in the competition.

Coaching it to a premiership was an unquestionably great achievement. Since then, the Roosters have won three minor premierships only to lose three prelim finals.

Clubs inevitably look forward not backwards these days and it posed the obvious question as to whether he could get them over the line again.

South Sydney’s answer to that question was sacking their own premiership-winning coach Michael Maguire last season. 

There’s no downplaying the role Cronk played in getting the Roosters to the decider, but winning it without him would be the ultimate testament to Robinson’s quality as a coach.