Craig Bellamy's Melbourne Storm hit Leeds for World Club Challenge

Mention the name Craig Bellamy in Sydney or Brisbane, and the reaction would be similar to that in Liverpool or London. A fair amount of loathing, perhaps the odd quip about his industrial language, but grudging respect for his ability. However, this has nothing to do with the infamously feisty Manchester City forward from south Wales. He has a namesake from New South Wales who has arguably displaced the veteran Brisbane Broncos guru Wayne Bennett as the leading rugby league coach in the world, and who has brought his Melbourne Storm team back to Leeds this weekend aiming to put right the 11-4 defeat they suffered against the Rhinos in the World Club Challenge two years ago. "Craig is probably the highest-profile coach in the game back home," says Michael Maguire, who was head-hunted by Wigan last autumn largely because of his experience working alongside Bellamy at the Storm. "He's been the New South Wales coach for the State of Origin series for the last couple of years, as well as all the success he's had with Melbourne. He'd be the first to say he had a great coaching education working with Wayne at the Broncos and before that Tim Sheens and Mal Meninga at Canberra. But he's created his own history now. To be able to take a team to four straight Grand Finals is pretty much unprecedented in the salary-cap era." Bellamy's success is all the more remarkable as it has come in a city where Australian Rules is overwhelmingly the most popular football code. That has not gone down well in league's traditional power bases to the north, where the ferocious Sydney media have labelled him Bellyache, and gone to town over his innovative, but not necessarily attractive, tactics. One newspaper sent a pair of WWE wrestlers to a Storm training session to mock the tackling techniques such as grappling and so-called chicken wings for which Bellamy's team became notorious, although they have since become widespread. But there is clearly far more to the 50-year-old's coaching than that. Clint Newton, a former Melbourne second-row now with Hull KR, points out that brilliant attackers such as Billy Slater and Greg Inglis, as well as the less spectacular contributors to the Storm's success such as Dallas Johnson and their captain Cameron Smith, were virtual unknowns when Bellamy lured them south to Victoria. "They're superstars now, but Craig has moulded that team from guys who were struggling in reserve grade at other places," says Newton. "He's great technically because of his attention to detail, but as a bloke he also epitomises what the perfect coach should be. He's still a mate to the players, or even a father figure – he's very hard on the outside but he's a big softie underneath, and I think secretly he used to like it when I gave him a cuddle at training." Johnson, the non-stop loose forward who left the Storm for the Catalans Dragons after last year's Grand Final win against Parramatta because of the salary-cap pressures to which Maguire refers, this week chose the words "intense" and "thorough" to describe Bellamy. The intensity goes some way towards explaining the profanity for which Bellamy is renowned, with a leading Australian Rugby League official once claiming that a special coaching box was installed on the roof of a grandstand so the crowd could not hear his invective. But Newton describes his former coach as "the perfect gentleman when he has to be", and his willingness to embrace the World Club Challenge despite the major disruption it causes to preparations for a domestic title defence reinforces the reputation he has earned in Melbourne as an ideal ambassador at an expansion club. Neither Bellamy or any of his players used the hostile atmosphere, or their lack of time to adjust from Australian summer to an Elland Road tornado, as an excuse when they were ground down by the Rhinos in a memorably brutal contest in 2008 – and they appear ominously businesslike in their preparations for the rematch. However, Leeds are equally determined after losing the world club title to Manly last year, and in Jamie Peacock, Kevin Sinfield, Matt Diskin and Jamie Jones-Buchanan, they have warriors who will again relish the battle against the Melbourne bruisers Adam Blair and Jeff Lima (assuming he passes a late fitness test). The worry for Leeds is potential weakness out wide following the loss of their Australian wing Scott Donald and centre and compatriot Brett Delaney rushing back from a knee injury. Inglis, the huge, rapid and skilful centre who was a landslide winner of the Golden Boot as the world's best player, will be licking his lips.