BELLAMY: NEW RULES PLAY INTO STORM HANDS
THE new rules that made the opening match of the restarted NRL season “lightning fast” could play into the hands of Melbourne Storm captain Cameron Smith, coach Craig Bellamy said yesterday.
With a single referee allowed to call “six-again” on the run, and restart a tackle count for ruck infringements rather than stop for penalties, Bellamy said the best dummy halves could get an extreme advantage.
Parramatta scored the opening try in Thursday night’s game off back-to-back repeat sets, and tired defences were opened up on other calls during the game, where the speed and continuous nature stood out.
Bellamy said Smith, who turns 37 on June 18, had “unrivalled” experience at dummy half and could prove the key weapon against Canberra tonight, and for the rest of the season.
“Cameron is unrivalled in his experience in the game and his experience at that position. We haven’t played under these rules before ... it will be interesting to see how they pan out,” Bellamy said.
“But the way a couple of the dummy halves went (on Thursday night), coming out to get people on to the ball, that was pretty encouraging for us because no one does it better than Cameron.
“If that style of games continues the craftier dummy halves will think they are able to do some damage, but the quicker ones will be able to do a bit of damage as well.
“We’re only going on one night and we’ll see if that is a continuing pattern, but if it is we’d like to think that gives us an advantage with Cameron’s experience and what he does so well.”
Each team can take only 20 players into a match venue and Bellamy, who said the COVID-19 biosecurity protocols were “wearing me down at times”, revealed Storm would have plenty of players at home on standby.
“They’ll be sitting next to their phones with their boots polished and mouthguard ready if we get a crop of guys that do go down,” he said.