Melbourne and the Bulldogs <\/a>on Friday night sat up in their seat when footage from the sheds captured Slater coaching up several Storm players at half time.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Slater, the current Maroons coach, has been heavily linked as Bellamy\u2019s possible replacement whenever the legendary coach decides to step away from the role he\u2019s held since 2003.<\/p>\n
Slater hasn\u2019t given any indication publicly he wants the Melbourne gig.<\/p>\n
When the footage from the sheds of Slater deep in conversation with Tyran Wishart and Sua Fa\u2019alogo, Anasta asked the Fox League panel whether Slater \u201ccould be the next man up\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think he wants to do it, I don\u2019t think he will do it. I think the Melbourne Storm would love for him to do it,\u201d Cronk replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoaching is 24-7, 365 days. He did that as a player for 16, 17 years. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think Melbourne Storm would love him to do it. Personally he\u2019s never said this to me, but I just don\u2019t think he would.\u201d<\/p>\n
Billy Slater in the Storm sheds at half time.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d be the obvious choice wouldn\u2019t he?\u201d Kangaroos coach Kevin Walters speculated.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got his racehorses and he\u2019s coaching Queensland but that (vision) looks to me like the next Melbourne Storm coach right there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Remarkably, following the Bulldogs loss, the Storm are set to miss the finals for just the second time since Bellamy took the reigns 23 years ago.<\/p>\n
During the week, Bellamy stated he has another season or two in him but it could depend on whether Cameron Munster stays with the club. Munster has been linked to the PNG Chiefs.<\/p>\n
Bellamy\u2019s contracted with the Storm until the end of 2028, but his future in coaching is clouded given he was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disorder earlier in the year.<\/p>\n
Storm’s 16 year finals streak broken | 10:23<\/p>\n
Cronk was asked what he thought his former coach should do, with the champion halfback urging Bellamy to continue on.<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple of years ago I told Craig I thought he\u2019d you know, walk away. You\u2019ve done everything that you can in the game, you\u2019ve improved the lives of young men that come through the doors and Melbourne Storm. If he asked me now, I would tell him to coach on,\u201d Cronk said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say because of his condition, I think he loves the energy, I think he loves helping young people. He\u2019s obviously still good at it. The players still respect him. But the Melbourne Storm will look after him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say to him personally, stay involved, get the stimulus, do the things you\u2019re good at. And maybe the Melbourne Storm put a succession plan in. Maybe they start ushering someone through next year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Storm legend Cooper Cronk doesn\u2019t believe former Melbourne teammate Billy Slater will step up and replace Craig Bellamy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-836691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}