He lauded his players’ efforts in Thursday’s 26-18 victory over South Sydney, but coach Craig Bellamy openly admitted there are legitimate questions over the current Melbourne Storm side following Cameron Smith’s retirement.
Smith finally confirmed his decision to hang up the boots after 430 games and 19 seasons with the Strom on the eve of their season-opener against Wayne Bennett’s Bunnies.
Led by a sublime performance from full-back Ryan Papenhuyzen, the defending premiers burst out to a 22-0 lead and survived the inevitable comeback from the dangerous Rabbitohs.
After the victory, Bellamy conceded it was ‘strange’ coaching the Storm without Smith in his side and admitted he wasn’t sure his men would hang on against the Rabbitohs without the former skipper’s steadying influence.
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“We had a great start and then we struggled for the rest of the game to be quite honest,” Bellamy said.
“… But I just thought when we were six in front (in the second half) we steadied the ship pretty good and I was really happy with that.
“Not having Cameron there I was probably a little bit worried but I thought Jesse (Bromwich) and the leaders did a really good job there and steadied the ship a little bit.”
The victory over may pundits’ pre-season premiership favourites was a statement victory for the 2020 premiers.
But Bellamy conceded Smith’s absence will continue to be felt in the coming weeks and months.
“Obviously it’s a big question mark over us and this certainly doesn’t make our season but there’s a big question mark over us with Cameron retiring,” Bellamy said.
“There’s no secret that we’re going to miss him in a lot of areas, so I was really proud of the way they handled it tonight especially our leaders.
“But the pleasing thing is I think we’ve got plenty of improvement in this footy team.”
Smith’s No.9 jumper is in good hands after Brandon Smith produced a strong performance after replacing the injured Harry Grant in the starting side.
“I thought he was great, he was definitely one of our best,” Bellamy said of Brandon Smith.
“He’s definitely a different dummy-half to the one we’ve had for 20 years but I thought he did a really good job tonight.
“… Our plan was to replace him 10 minutes into the second half but he went a bit longer than that I thought he was certainly one of our better players.”
The coach added Grant, who suffered a knee injury during the pre-season, won’t return until Round 4 at the earliest.
Meanwhile, Bellamy lauded Papenhuyzen, who scored two tries and kicked five-from-six with the boot after taking over the goal-kicking duties in Smith’s absence.
“He’s been practicing a whole heap,” Bellamy said.
“Our big three players (Smith, Billy Slater and Cooper Cronk) over the years, they weren’t just good players because they were touched with the talent brush, they worked really hard and Paps has got that work ethic as well.
“So when he realised he was going to be his goal kicker this year he practiced really hard and to his credit he did a great job for us tonight.
“… He wanted to take the job on, he’s in Cameron’s shadow a bit but he wanted to take the job on.
“And I thought even besides his goal kicking he was tremendous tonight, for a guy his size he’s tough and yeah, he was tremendous tonight.”
