NRL great Sam Thaiday has urged the new Western Australia club to make Craig Bellamy its top coaching target. The league will on Thursday confirm Perth will be home to the 18th team, expected to enter the competition in 2027 and be named the Bears. It's been widely speculated former longtime Eels coach Brad Arthur is the frontrunner to take charge of the reborn Bears, while Sam Burgess has also expressed interest. Arthur took Parramatta to NRL finals five times in a decade, and played in one grand final without ever clinching a premiership. He is considered skilled at building an NRL roster capable of playing top-eight football. Burgess is a less experienced option, but his profile is considered attractive. He is currently coaching Warrington in the Super League. However, Thaiday wants the Bears to aim a little higher than both those candidates and go after legendary Storm mastermind Bellamy. Bellamy, 65, took the reins at Melbourne in 2003 and has led the team to 10 grand finals and three legitimate premierships - as well as two that were revoked due to salary cap cheating. In 2022 he inked a fresh five-year deal with the Storm, but he is allowed to decide year by year whether he continues coaching the team - effectively meaning he is always a free agent. "What an exciting thing for our game. We are growing, we are expanding. We are trying to get bigger, we're reaching different markets... I'll put my hand up, I'll coach them," Thaiday joked on Nine's Today on Thursday. "There are a few coaches NRL coaches at the moment that are sitting on their hands waiting for an opportunity - Brad Arthur has already thrown his hat into the ring. "But I think this is a club that needs to be set up properly from the start. They need to be competitive, they need to make sure they're winning more games than they're losing. "Will they win a premiership in their first year? I don't think so. Will they make finals in their first year? I don't think so, but they do need to be competitive. "If I had a bucket load of money - and there is iron ore money over there in Perth - I would be throwing it at Craig Bellamy, and really building a team from a fantastic coach like Craig Bellamy." Several rival clubs have tried to lure Bellamy away from Melbourne over the years - most recently the Eels and the Rabbitohs - to no avail. It's been speculated he will one day return to southern Queensland where he has family. Whether he wants to continue coaching into his 70s, as fellow supercoach Wayne Bennett has done, remains to be seen. Thaiday poured cold water on the idea of English great Burgess coaching the new Perth team. "I think he needs to have a really good team around him if it's going to be a rookie coach like Sam Burgess," he said.
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