Melbourne playmaker Cameron Munster plays his 100th NRL game when he runs out against Canterbury on Sunday.
But he might not make it to 101 if he keeps pranking Storm coach Craig Bellamy.
A video has been doing the rounds of Munster putting something into his sleeping coach’s open mouth while on a plane trip, much to the amusement of the Storm players.
“I’m not entirely sure if he has seen it but I’ll be more than happy to show him if he gets a bit lippy to me,” Munster said on Saturday when asked about the video.
“Bellyache (Bellamy) is always getting into the boys and yelling at training so we try to do our best off the field to get him back.”
It’s a reflection of how Munster plays his football – not afraid to take a risk – which is something that Bellamy relishes in the 24-year-old.
“He gives me a fair bit more than grey hairs at times,” Bellamy said.
“At some stages throughout his career I never thought he could get to 100 games but when you see the quality player that he is you know he will play a whole heap of games.
“To his credit he has settled down off the field this year and you can see that in what he is doing on the field.
“A lot of times in the game there’s not much happening and he can turn it on its head, so we’re lucky to have a player like him,.”
Munster said he made it his goal as a nine-year-old in Rockhampton to play in the NRL and would have settled for one game.
Unable to break into a single rep team until he turned 18, he arrived in Melbourne to work in their membership department and train part-time with the first-grade squad.
Making his NRL debut in 2014, he has become one of the leading players in the competition with four Queensland Origin caps, two Tests and the 2017 premiership.
Munter said he had the Storm, and more directly Bellamy, to thank for his success.
His career almost went off the rails when he was ushered home from Kangaroos camp in late 2017 for misbehaving, but Bellamy stood by him.
“On field he is very passionate about his footy but he can go away from it and have an honest, decent conversation with you asking how you are going and how your family is.
“That’s something not everyone has with their coach,” Munster said.
“There was a lot of hype around me getting the flick at the end of 2017 but he believed in me and is the main reason I’m here.
“I’m forever in his debt.”
