Craig Bellamy rips Melbourne Storm players as Christian Welch comment backfires

Craig Bellamy took a rare public swipe at his own players as Christian Welch's comments backfired brutally in Melbourne's shock loss to the Knights on Saturday night. The Storm coach questioned how much his players actually want to win after they blew a double-digit lead for the second time in three games in the 26-18 loss.

The Storm raced out to a 12-0 lead after 10 minutes with tries to Nick Meaney and Trent Loiero, but it was all downhill from there as the Knights raced in three tries while Tariq Sims was in the sin-bin. A Justin Olam try reduced the margin to 24-18 in the second half, but the Storm couldn't land a killer blow despite enjoying ample opportunities in Newcastle's red zone.

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Bellamy's men also missed a whopping 47 tackles - way up on Canterbury's NRL-worst average of 38.7 per game. "It's probably as disappointing a 70 minutes that I can remember, especially 20 or 30 minutes in the first half," Bellamy said.

"We lacked energy, we lacked enthusiasm, we looked like we lacked communication. Disappointing. Not all the times but sometimes you wonder how important it is to them. I'm not quite sure where that initial enthusiasm and aggression and intent went. It was like it just got too hard or we thought it was going to be too easy."

It marked the second time in three games that the Storm have blown a double-digit advantage. They led 14-0 against Penrith before going on to lose 34-16 in round 18.

Bellamy said it was not the first time this season he had questioned his side's intent. "It's been a bit of an up-and-down year for that," he said.

"We've got to ask ourselves, how ruthless are we? How ruthless do we want to be?

"Do we want to be a good football team when we've got all the ball and as soon as you're going, or do we want to be a good football team in any situation? We haven't been that this year. The one thing I hate is inconsistency in footy teams."

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Newcastle fans were quick to point out the extra motivation that Welch gave them when he was caught making disparaging remarks about the Knights last month. Welch was overheard before a press conference asking Bellamy "how did the Knights lose" in reference to their loss to a Panthers side missing their State of Origin players and an injured Nathan Cleary. “The Panthers didn‘t have anyone,” Welch could be heard saying before the press conference kicked off, oblivious to the fact that everyone in the room could hear him.

Newcastle's performance was so sharp that coach Adam O'Brien isn't ruling out a late charge into the finals. The win takes the Knights to 23 points (just one outside the eight), and they need to win four of their final six games just to finish with a winning record.

"I've said a number of times this week in particular that our best footy has held up against Penrith, it's held up against Brisbane," O'Brien said in his press conference. "We've come a long way in terms of our resilience, definitely.

"We're a tougher footy team than what we were last year. We're maturing as well. We've got a really important game next week down in Canberra to keep this going."

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