EXCLUSIVE: Joey lifts lid on Bellamy 'character' test for potential recruits that underpins his greatness
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The supercoach debate is one that simmers in rugby league circles and divides opinions around the game.
Who's the best to ever do it?
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The likes of Jack Gibson, Warren Ryan, Wayne Bennett, Trent Robinson, Ivan Cleary and Tim Sheens are often in the conversation.
But according to the eighth Immortal Andrew Johns, there is one man who stands head and shoulders above the rest.
Craig Bellamy will on Sunday carry the clipboard in his 10th NRL grand final in charge of Melbourne.
Bennett has also coached in 10 premiership deciders, of which he won seven across the Broncos and Dragons.
Storm supercoach Craig Bellamy. Getty
The Storm have won six of nine under Bellamy, although the 2007 and 2009 titles were later stripped due to salary cap cheating. On Sunday Bellamy may draw level with Bennett with a seventh grand final win from 10 attempts.
His sustained success across a two-decade career at the helm is what has Johns in awe of the Melbourne mastermind.
Bellamy, 65, claimed a seventh Dally M Coach of Year gong on Wednesday night, at the same time his manufactured halfback Jahrome Hughes took out the top medal.
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"Jahrome Hughes is an example of how great a coach Craig Bellamy is. I have no doubt now he is the greatest coach who has ever coached rugby league," Johns proclaimed on Wide World of Sports' Immortal Behaviour.
"The best, without a doubt. Look at the players who go down there, they all become better players.
"You never hear a player bag Craig Bellamy. I've never heard a player bag him... the other coaches, the great coaches, you can hear some players putting a bit of shit on them. I've never heard a player bag Craig Bellamy.
"He's an innovator, he changed the game. They had to change the rules... I hate the wrestling, but that's what he is, an innovator.
Craig Bellamy and Cameron Smith celebrate another premiership. Getty
"They have lost future Immortals, they have lost champion players but there has never been a rebuild. Other clubs lose one or two legends and they dip... not the Storm.
"The way the team has evolved and changed, the way he has coached the team with different players in key positions... if you watch Melbourne from 10 years ago when the big three were playing, they are unrecognisable from how they play now.
"He's got everything. He is a man manager, he works hard, he is an innovator, his game plans are second to none. He is a marvel."
The "big three" Johns refers to are hooker Cameron Smith, fullback Billy Slater, and halfback Cooper Cronk.
The club won four grand finals when the three representative superstars were steering the ship side by side.
Any team might be expected to win titles with a spine like that, but it's what the Storm have done since they've split up that has to be marvelled at.
Since Cronk left in 2018 the Storm have played in two more grand finals - winning one - and claimed three minor premierships. They haven't finished lower than fifth on the ladder.
Smith and Slater are long retired but Bellamy has been able to keep the purple juggernaut rolling. They're on the brink of ending Penrith's dynasty and run of three straight premierships.
The key - says Johns - is the unique recruitment policy Bellamy and his football boss Frank Ponissi have in place.
"They go back to the school, they will phone the principals, school teachers, they go to junior coaches, people in the area where they grew up - and if one or two people say 'he's a bit of a dick', they don't sign them," Johns said.
Storm football boss Frank Ponissi and Craig Bellamy in 2013. Getty
"If they get a young guy and bring them down, (Bellamy) takes them to a cafe. If they don't say please or thankyou - he doesn't care how good you are, you're not a part of it.
"They recruit on character and then they educate them. It's an amazing model the way they build the club down there."
There's been speculation annually for a number of years that Bellamy is close to walking away from coaching.
Johns can't see that happening.
"I hope he does it for another five years at least," he said.
"He's got that competitive monster inside him. He's in every day at 5am... he's a workaholic, it's what he loves doing."
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