A frustrated Craig Bellamy says he can understand why Zac Lomax moved to rugby union, voicing his annoyance that the State of Origin winger has been lost to rugby league.
One week after making his displeasure known at Lomax being locked out of an NRL return with Melbourne, Bellamy doubled down on his comments on Friday.
The Temora junior this week signed a two-year deal with the Western Force, with an eye to playing for the Wallabies in next year's Rugby World Cup.
Blocked by Parramatta from joining another club without their approval following his attempted move to R360 last year, Lomax could theoretically have tried to go elsewhere after talks between the Eels and Storm broke down.
But he instead opted for union, listing the possibility of playing "on a truly international stage" as a powerful motivation.
"It's a shame we lost him," Bellamy said.
"I can understand his frustration and I can understand leaving our game, but that doesn't make me feel better about it.
"We've lost one hell of a player to another code, and we didn't really have to. But even more important, we lost a really good person to our code."
Bellamy's focus is now on the next generation of Melbourne players, with 12 members of Melbourne's 19-man squad to face St George Illawarra on Saturday having less than 100 games to their name.
But that mattered little in the 52-4 flogging of Parramatta, with fullback Sua Fa'alogo particularly impressive in his first game as Ryan Papenhuyzen's replacement.
Heralded after a big rookie year in 2024, Fa'alogo was overlooked for large parts of last season at the Storm.
"The big improvement in Sua is he's fit this year," Bellamy said.
"I'm not quite sure with his mindset last year whether he thought he was fit enough, but you've got to be probably the fittest guy in the team to play fullback.
"With Paps gone, we told him he was going to get first shot at it, so he turned up in a lot better physical condition."
Melbourne are also set to blood back-rower Angus Hinchey against the Dragons in Wollongong, after also debuting Preston Conn and Cooper Clarke last week.
Perhaps with his mind still on Lomax, Bellamy mistakenly referred to Hinchey as a Temora product on Friday before Storm officials confirmed he had come out of Queensland.
"He's a back-rower. He's just a very energetic player, and that's what you like about him," Bellamy said of teenager Hinchey.
"If he's going to do something wrong, he'll be going flat-out.
"They're the sort of players you like. He'll get out there and he'll be going flat-out for the time he's out there. I'm sure he'll add a bit of energy to the team."
