Did Craig Bellamy flip Cameron Smith the bird?

Right, so this story started way back in 2019. It was the week of my 400th game and as the Melbourne Storm do on any milestone for their players they put on functions, presentations, the whole lot. On this particular occasion it was my jersey presentation. There were multiple speakers. One of those was my coach, Craig Bellamy. He went out the front of the group and he spoke about my career at length. We all know Cameron’s played Origins and Premierships and Dally-M’s and points scored tackles made, but there’s one record that Cameron doesn’t have… and that’s my try scoring record. To be honest it wasn’t something that I was thinking about. The amount of tries that Craig scored in his career wouldn’t even make the all-time list. 46 tries is so insignificant it’s not funny. We all sat back and had a bit of a giggle. We thought he was taking the piss but he wasn’t, he was serious. At that stage I was still a few short. I was on 43… and I was never one to keep tally of anything in my career. But as soon as he put that in my mind he planted the seed. That was my goal for the rest of my career. I just needed to beat Craig Bellamy. The following season rolls around we move into 2020. I’m one short. By this time, all of my teammates they’re all aware of what I’m chasing. Hey Smithy, you’re one away. Hey Smithy, we’ll try and get you one this week. It just ate away at me. Then we come to the back end of the year and I score a try to equal his record… but in doing so I bust my shoulder. The physios, the doctors, they were all panicked. They didn’t know whether I was going to play another game… and I remember thinking to myself. I can’t finish my career on the same tries as Craig. If there’s anything else to achieve in my career. It’s beating Craig Bellamy… and I think I waited three games to come back. I just had to get this record and all of a sudden the opportunity arises. I toe the ball through… place the ball in the in-goal and I think I scored a try well the referee, he wants to have a look at it. If we get the green light I go past Craig Bellamy. This is what I’ve been waiting 12 months for. They look over it for two or three minutes. The suspense. It was killing everyone. Well guess what? the big TRY spins around on the scoreboard. We celebrate, we squirt water bottles in the air. We’re high fiving we’re patting each other on the back and I turn to the coaches box where Craig Bellamy’s sitting… and out comes the big finger the bird! Here’s possibly the greatest coach of the last 20 years. Flipping the bird to his captain. I have a bit of a laugh about it these days because the one thing he still talks about is how it only took him roughly 150 games to reach that mark whereas it took me 430. But at the end of the day I got more tries than Craig So I’m happy with that. Record’s a record, mate. They’re there forever.

Melbourne Storm legend Cameron Smith has many rugby league records to be proud of, but you’ll never guess which one makes him smile the most?