Melbourne Storm NRL coach Craig Bellamy calls for overhaul of Rugby League World Cup Melbourne Storm pre-season training. Craig Bellamy. MELBOURNE Storm coach Craig Bellamy says the Rugby League World Cup is "ridiculously long" and has called for a total overhaul of the tournament. Storm players Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, Cooper Cronk and prop Jesse Bromwich will play in tomorrow morning's final between Australia and New Zealand. The weary players have been in the UK for almost eight weeks and Bellamy said the set-up was not fair on players coming off a full NRL season. "It has been ridiculously long, to be quite honest," Bellamy said. It's obviously a great experience for the smaller nations in rugby league to participate, but there are probably only three or so sides that can actually win it. I don't have all the answers, but certainly we have to look at it being shorter and perhaps just having three or four teams vying for the World Cup that can win it. Perhaps the other nations just play off while still getting that experience and exposure but without it going as a long as it has. The Storm suffered a major scare when Slater went down in the quarter-finals with a knee injury. Slater, Smith and Cronk played their first game this year back in mid-February, with the season also including a gruelling State of Origin series.