Craig Bellamy knows a top team when he sees one.
The Melbourne coach has labelled St George Illawarra the benchmark of the NRL competition after the Dragons’ 34-14 win on Sunday.
More than 19,000 fans watched on at Jubilee Oval, Kogarah as the Dragons scored a much more comfortable victory than the four tries to three scoreline would suggest, with Gareth Widdop’s boot keeping the hosts well out of Melbourne’s range all afternoon.
Bellamy, who has won two premierships as a coach and two further grand finals where titles were stripped due to Melbourne being in breach of the salary cap, is regarded as one of the finest coaches in the game.
And the Storm coach said after full-time his team would learn plenty from their encounter with the Dragons.
“What we took from today is they’re the benchmark. We know now that we’ve got some work to do,” he said.
“I just said that to the players in [the dressing room]. Hopefully they take that on board because they are the benchmark without doubt. They’ve been playing great footy all season and if we want to play some footy in September we need to improve.
“They did a lot of good things today. To me our biggest learning today from them being the benchmark is we had a lot of ball there late in the first half but they defended their goal line a lot better. And they’ve been doing it all season. We’ve been doing it for parts of the season but we haven’t been consistent at all.
Dragons coach Paul McGregor was delighted with his team’s performance – and chuffed to hear Bellamy’s assessment of his side – with St George Illawarra remaining on top of the table ahead of their clash with South Sydney at ANZ Stadium next Sunday.
“That’s nice to hear from a great man and a great coach,” McGregor said.
“It was a nice score line to finish with. There were moments in the game we played some really good footy and other moments we’ll learn from and we’ve got some work to do.
“We talked about expectation and it’s actually not from within. We’ve got an appreciation of what we’re doing at the moment. To come and play in front of 19,000 people at home, you’ve got to appreciate that.
“Everyone else outside obviously is looking towards expectations of the game. We’re looking to run out in front of 19,000 people and appreciate what we’re building. We can’t be complacent in what we do. So every week we go to training and look to improve on what we did the week before. And if we do that and remain grounded we’ll be fine.”
