Gritty Melbourne built with passion
NICK WALSHAW ON TOUGH days, Craig Smith takes his old premiership ring from the safe and slips it on.
But not for show. The retired Melbourne winger usually twists its chunky, gold face on to the inside of his palm, leaving it to sit unseen.
“But still I know I’m wearing it,” he says.
“Because just wearing it, it gives me a lift … reminds me that something I did matters.”
If you want to know what makes Melbourne Storm the most successful club of the NRL era, what makes its coach Craig Bellamy the best in the business, you must first travel 3400km west to Perth.
This is where Smith – a cult pick ‘ n’ swinger best remembered for being KO’d in the 1999 grand final – now lives, lays NBN cable and occasionally slips on that inaugural Storm premiership bling.
A living, breathing testament to Melbourne’s heartbeat.
What you all remember is Smith being KO’d by St George’s Jamie Ainscough with three minutes to play. Undoubtedly, the most memorable penalty try ever.
But how many know it was only Smith’s third NRL game that year? Or that he not only carried a busted rotator cuff into the decider (just like Roosters star Cooper Cronk), but was regularly having 60ml of fluid drained from his knee?
Almost all season, Smith struggled, unwanted, in Queensland Cup.
“At one point, prop Glenn Lazarus even asked how I hadn’t quit? But I was determined to hang in, to stay until it was finished,” he said.
It’s why now, at Storm reunions, fellow Old Boys thank him for that try; understanding that what was forged, in part, by Smith and his persistence has only grown stronger under Bellamy’s watch.
So make all the jokes you like about speed boats, cooked books and WrestleMania, Storm is the club which has made premiership heroes of Clint Newton, Todd Lowrie and Richie Fa’aoso.
Come tomorrow the club will look to make back-to-back champs of Tim Glasby, Cam Munster and Josh Addo-Carr.
Having Billy Slater and Cameron Smith helps.
But what about finding new levels in players like Adam Woolnough, the prop who was backpacking through South America when Bellamy called? Or Bryan Norrie, who was three beers into an Australia Day bender and signed to captain-coach Wagga Kangaroos?
“But Craig (Bellamy), he identifies with us because he was us,” says Jaiman Lowe, the backrower who morphed from Cairns miner into 2012 premiership winner.
“He knows about existing one bad game from the axe. Craig cares about his players.
“He’s always talking with you about family, about your wife and kids. And because he cares, you care … that’s why I wanted to play for him.”
They all do. Just ask Lowrie, who says Bellamy’s real influence isn’t his infamous bollockings, but what occurs after.
“Most coaches after spraying you, they won’t speak with you for days,” Lowrie says.
“But with Craig, once your meeting is done, once you’re both out the door, he’s laughing and joking again. Because you’re more than a footy player to him … you’re a person.”