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Melbourne are often roughly labelled as a top-heavy team too dependent on their sumptuous core of superstars – mainly by unimaginative noobs like myself.
But contrary to noob opinion, this team isn’t just a Big Three or a Big Four or a Big Two or whatever it has been re-indexed to these days after recent market fluctuations.
Nope, apparently Craig Bellamy does in fact field teams consisting of at least 17 players. Pretty much on a weekly basis too.
After doing a bit of research, I was amazed to discover there are contributors for the Storm who aren’t Cameron Smith or Cooper Cronk or Billy Slater, and who weren’t Greg Inglis or Israel Folau or Joel Romelo.
How could I have not spotted this?
It seems that out of necessity to fulfil rugby league regulations, Bellamy has been forced to develop the additional personnel required to constitute a full football team.
While his immortal core of magic-weaving, referee-charming geniuses may pack the collective talent of an entire squad or three states of New South Wales on their own, just trotting them out for kickoff on their lonesome is not enough to meet the requirements of the NRL gameday manual.
This conundrum compelled Bellamy to dip deep.
He had to construct a squad from the remaining dregs of the talent pool that aren’t mind-blowing, cap-filling talents of sickeningly high ability.
And, despite developing a sweating problem that makes him look like he’s smuggling ice cream sandwiches, he can fulfil this difficult task with aplomb.
With a bunch of priority players costing quite the pretty penny, Bellamy has mastered the art of the rugby league chopshop.
He’ll take whatever you’ve got that’s cheap – bush league stalwarts, academy drop-outs and drifters – and he’ll mould them into Green Berets on a minimum wage.
Looking back at his time with the Storm, you’d be forgiven for thinking he is the lovechild of Jesus Christ and Corey Worthington, such is the way he can regularly transform water into wine and orchestrate small numbers into a blazing house party.
Has anyone been more adept at the craft? Would Melbourne be a smouldering pile of irrelevance without him?
In the club’s wasteland years of 1998-2002 BC (Before Craig), the organisation had no freaking idea how to manage a squad of rugby league players. Thus, only one, single, pitiful premiership was captured in this time.
But since his acquisition, the winning percentages have skyrocketed and the premierships have flowed. Some of them legal too.
Last weekend is a prime example of his developmental work. His team is supposed to be in the midst of an injury crisis, yet they still handed out such a thrashing to the Broncos that Wayne Bennett hung a sock on the door handle at halftime.
Amongst other bit-part inclusions and positional overhaul, his starting line-up last Friday night at Suncorp included a centre pairing of Ryan Morgan and Cheyse Blair. Both are lethally anonymous.
Prior to their time at the Storm, Morgan was best known as the skim off the top of Parramatta’s wage bill, while the long-sleeved Blair had recently built a profile as the bloke out on the edges who dressed like the white Wiggle.
Who would’ve thought this pair were capable of anything other than a burgeoning collection of jerseys? But in trademark Bellamy procedure, now they are indisputably the most dangerous backline combination in the hemisphere.
So out of all those who’ve worn the Storm purple who aren’t named Cam or Cooper or Billy or a Wallaby, who is the best backroom name from the Bellamy era?
Who do you recall prudently getting the job done that isn’t engulfing a quarter of the salary cap? Who never received their just desserts or their speedboat?
Despite Bellamy’s era concocting a host of great representative names on the sub-penthouse level who will never have a statue named after them, I prefer those hyper-unappreciated fellas who play each week like they’re working for tips.
I’m referring to grease monkeys like Ryan Hinchcliffe.
Not only did the Taree product possess utility value like that of a Japanese vending machine, he laboured with a minimum of fuss. He was so easy to take for granted that you probably used his footy card to light the stove.
Secondly, I want to give a shout-out to Bryan Norrie.
On the cusp of the glitz and glamour of the Wagga Kangaroos, he threw it all away to play 120 thankless games for the club. He would be barely recognised in the street. Even in Wagga.
When it comes to Bellamy and the Storm stereotype, this is the kind of undervalued value that we really value.