The son rises in a new era at TigerlandCaroline Wilson
March 29, 2012
Steven Morris with his father, Kevin, who also played for the Tigers. Photo: Joe ArmaoFOOTBALL broke Steven Morris' heart at a tender age. The 23-year-old described his teenage self as if it were yesterday, sitting alone in front of his computer and watching the 2008 AFL rookie draft with increasing despair as all the wrong names flashed onto the screen.
Morris had trained with four clubs - Richmond, Carlton, Collingwood and Melbourne - at the end of 2007.
Injuries and skills that fell short had already left him overlooked in successive national drafts, but he had believed the Demons might throw him a lifeline and make him a rookie. When they didn't, the 19-year-old packed his bags and moved to South Australia.
Morris' father, dual Richmond premiership player Kevin Morris, suggested that the highly competitive and big-bodied South Australian National Football League was his best hope of a second chance. Neither could have known that his AFL chance would take another four years and be punctuated with cruel setbacks of the kind that would have beaten other young men. Nor that when it finally came, it would be with the Tigers.
Tonight, in front of an expected 80,000 people at the MCG, Morris will make his AFL debut against his father's old enemy, Carlton.
It is a cliche but also true to describe the customary Melbourne season-opener as a boyhood dream realised - for both father and son. Kevin Morris will present all four Richmond debutants with their Tiger jumpers.
From the moment Steven Morris arrived at Tigerland last October, the mature-aged recruit with a reconstructed body has impressed his coaches with his fanatical desire.
Morris, say the Tigers, worked so hard to answer every question demanded of him that when he asked one in return the club did not hesitate to say yes.
His request was to wear the No. 38 his father wore in more than 110 games with Richmond, including the successive flags of 1973 and '74 and as the Tigers' club champion in '75.
''To be honest, I just wanted to play for any club,'' Morris told The Age yesterday. ''I just wanted to play AFL football. The fact that it's Richmond is just unbelievable. I never saw Dad play. I wasn't born, and he never talks about it much, but I just loved the idea of playing in the jumper my dad played in. And I get to see his name on my locker every day.''
His obstacle-ridden route to his father's old home - Kevin Morris left Richmond for Collingwood in 1978 and stayed there for two losing grand finals and four seasons - remained bumpy till the end.
Richmond could have taken the defender under the father-son rule, but Port Adelaide wanted him too after last year's breakout season in the SANFL and would have bid a second-round draft pick for him - a pick the Tigers needed to trade for former Adelaide ruckman Ivan Maric.
Maric, Morris, former Demon Addam Maric and teenager Brandon Ellis will all debut for Richmond on the big stage tonight.
Even when coach Damien Hardwick called to congratulate him last spring, Morris still couldn't quite believe his success, because the eventual deal - a convoluted trade via Greater Western Sydney - had to be kept quiet. Morris was holidaying in Perth with a friend when the news broke.
''I flew straight home to Adelaide, packed up everything in three or four days and came home,'' he said.
''I realised from the time I arrived here that we would play Carlton in round one and that they have two of the best small forwards in the competition, and my aim was to be selected to play on one of them.''
Captain Chris Newman revealed to Morris five days ago that he had got his wish.
''Chris stood in front of the team last Saturday and told everyone that the Tigers would have four club debutants for round one,'' Morris said.
''He wanted to highlight the importance our jumper had and its proud history and tradition and what it means to play for this club.''
It is almost 4˝ years since Melbourne's then senior recruiter, Craig Cameron, called Morris after he had been rejected and told him his skills were not quite good enough. Cameron also encouraged him not to give up.
''That broke my heart at that point in time,'' Morris said yesterday. ''But even if Craig hadn't told me to keep trying I would have. I made up my mind I was going to do everything I possibly could to get drafted.''
The youngest of three children, Morris left his close family to go to South Australia and move in with family friends, signing with the SANFL club West Adelaide, which his father had coached. He was supported by his football and a personal training business he ran for four years.
He missed home and he never lost his AFL ambition, no matter how much it was tested.
Season one ended with a shoulder reconstruction. Season two was promising until Morris damaged his knee in round 20 and had to have it rebuilt. He returned midway through season three but struggled.
Morris, who admits to having been a chronic over-trainer in the past, then embarked upon his most gruelling pre-season for 2011.
''I knew at that point it was going to be extremely difficult,'' he said.
''Giving it another go was going to be tough because even then not many mature-age players were being drafted.''
Mature-age Fremantle trio Michael Barlow, Alex Silvagni (both former VFL players) and Greg Broughton helped change all that.
It was a happier conversation when Cameron, by now the Tigers' head of football, called Morris last September and asked if he wanted to play for Richmond. That, recalled Morris with a smile, was ''a very easy question to answer''.
''I think it's fairly evident now that players develop at different rates,'' he said, ''and [Carlton's] Nick Duigan is a perfect example of players being recruited now for a specific purpose. But I wouldn't have got this opportunity if guys like them hadn't paved the way for me. Not that I'm saying I've achieved anything yet.
''I know I have shortcomings in my game, and I want to work on them not just for my sake but for the sake of the Richmond Football Club. I've worked too hard for this to spend two years here and then get delisted.''
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