MELBOURNE supercoach Craig Bellamy could sensationally take his career full circle and replace the man who first hired him as an NRL assistant 20 years ago — Wayne Bennett.

Courier Mail journalist Peter Badel has reported Bellamy hasn’t ruled out returning to Red Hill to take over from Bennett. Badel’s piece follows a Courier Mail column on Wednesday.

Bellamy’s contract with the Storm expires this year, while Bennett’s ends at the end of 2019. But there’s been plenty of speculation the Broncos could end Bennett’s tenure prematurely.

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Round 20

NRL 360 co-host Paul Kent believes the club may allow Bennett to see out his contract, and then bring Bellamy in as coach for season 2020.

“It’s been going around the game for some weeks now, and it makes sense,” Kent said.

“Wayne is on his way out of the Broncos, whether Wayne knows about it or approves of it — and the Broncos are looking, we already know they’ve had a dip at Paul Green and missed out there.

Wayne Bennett and Storm coach Craig Bellamy. Source: News Corp Australia

“Craig Bellamy is a career coach, he can come in and take over the joint for the next 10 years and that’s what appeals to the Broncos.

“Most importantly what appeals to the Broncos is he can return Brisbane to that exalted place that they once held in the competition where they were the benchmark for all standards.

“Craig Bellamy now does that at Melbourne, the Broncos want that back in Brisbane.

“From Craig Bellamy’s point of view, he’s off contract this season and Wayne Bennett still has another season to go ... I think the tentative discussion is he can have a season off, recharge the batteries a little bit, moves back to Brisbane, his daughter already lives up there on the Gold Coast, he takes the family back to Brisbane where he loves to live.

“It also allows him to get past Billy Slater and Cameron Smith’s careers most likely, they are both at the moment in the last year of their contracts, but it means he probably won’t have to coach against them when he comes to coach the Broncos in 2020.

“It all makes sense. Craig Bellamy refuses to say he is not interested in the job.”

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Bellamy worked as Bennett’s assistant before heading south to take over Melbourne’s coaching role in 2003.

He is regarded as the best coach in the game in recent history, having taken the Storm to two premierships and won two other grand finals that were later stripped.

Fox Sports’ chief NRL reporter James Hooper revealed there may be some bad blood between Bellamy and the Storm over contract clauses in recent times.

“I think Craig Bellamy was promised things by the Melbourne Storm’s current management in this current contract, and I know there was a period last year where Bellamy was upset, he feels he was promised certain undertakings and they hadn’t quite been delivered on,” Hooper said on NRL 360.

“That’s since been resolved but certainly I don’t think it’s all as smooth as it once was.”