The Storm know a time will come when they need to appoint a new head coach.
The Melbourne Storm have given Craig Bellamy their blessing to undertake a new role in 2025 because it will help them identify the ideal replacement for the super-coach. Bellamy will help Laurie Daley and the NSW State of Origin team next year in a special advisory role, and the Storm are more than happy to accomodate it.
Bellamy has taken a year-by-year approach to his future and Storm chairman Matt Tripp is hoping to sit down with him in January to discuss his plans for 2026. At this stage, Bellamy’s future beyond 2025 is up in the air.
But Tripp believes the short absences that Bellamy’s role with the NSW Blues will create at the Storm in 2025 will be a good thing because their assistants will have to step up. Marc Brentnall, Ryan Hinchcliffe and Bellamy’s son Aaron are all thought to be in contention to take over as head coach of the Storm whenever Craig finally walks away for good.
“I think it’s a good thing,” Tripp told the Daily Telegraph about Bellamy’s new role with NSW. “I think it’s a great opportunity for the young coaches to get their head around what it might be like down the track for life without him. I am happy for him (Bellamy). It’s obviously a great result for the Blues.”
The 2025 season will be Bellamy’s 23rd in charge of the Storm, and Tripp conceded he probably won’t find out until later in the year whether the coach will go around again in 2026. “It’s always in January when we have our first chat,” Tripp said. “I’ll let him have a break over Christmas and then hopefully he can come back and have a think about it. I think he is in a good space.”
Brandon Smith questions ‘strange’ Jonah Pezet move
Meanwhile, Roosters hooker Brandon Smith has taken another shot at his old club, expressing his confusion at Jonah Pezet’s decision to re-sign with the Storm. Pezet was being heavily courted by the Newcastle Knights, who even had captain Kalyn Ponga attend a dinner with Pezet to try and lure him to the club on a $2.5 million deal.
However the 21-year-old half opted to remain at the Storm and sign a new deal, despite being stuck behind the likes of Jahrome Hughes, Cameron Munster and Tyran Wishart. A clause in Pezet’s new deal stipulates that he can break his contract if reigning Dally M medallist Hughes re-signs.
“He’s staying at the Melbourne Storm, where he’s going to be a back-up,” former Storm hooker Smith said on the ‘Bye Round’ podcast this week. “They’ve got Jahrome Hughes there, he’s just come off the best year of his career and he doesn’t look like he’s slowing down.”
Smith described it as “strange” that Pezet wouldn’t want to move to a club where he would walk into a starting role. “Whereas Jonah, he walks into that Knights halves role and that’s his team,” Smith added. “I feel like Jonah, at his age, as a half, you want to walk into a team and say this is my team now.”
Pezet played his junior rugby league in the Newcastle region before being lured to the Storm in 2021. He’s only played 10 first-grade games to date, including three in 2024 before suffering an ACL injury in reserve grade.
