Mitch Morton is learning the hard way
Michael Gleeson | June 13, 2009
AFTER Richmond lost to Sydney a statement was made at selection and Mitch Morton, one of the Tigers' more goal-efficient forwards, was dropped. It was not as savage and pointed as the selection decisions made by "Jade the Blade" this week, but it was notable and pointed.
Morton might have been kicking goals, but it seemed to be all he was interested in doing. It was a football equivalent of the batsman who is more worried to have the "not out" in red ink next to his name than winning the game.
What was interesting about the decision was not only that Morton was dropped, but that the decision was made by the leadership group. The leaders at Richmond have been criticised this year for sundry things, but the Morton decision was a moment of admirable assertiveness.
They were annoyed Morton had been allowed to be more onlooker than participant with some aspects of the game as long as he kicked goals. A message needed to be sent, not only to Morton but the remainder of the group.
"I got dropped and I learnt my lesson from that," Morton said. "I learnt that my way of helping the team and having an impact is not so much whether I kick goals as set them up for others and apply defensive pressure …
"I didn't have an issue with being dropped. You have to take responsibility for it, and it doesn't matter who it is that makes the decision, it is the decision that counts and I knew what I had to do.
"I think it is just a trap that inexperienced players like myself fall into. You don't have that security in your ability that a 150-game player has. It makes you think 'I had better kick goals here' because you think you might not get another chance. Chances are hard to get in games, but the harder you work the more confidence you get and chances come up."
After Morton's return to the side he wore much of the blame internally, and then very publicly, for the agonising last-minute loss to Port Adelaide. With his side ahead with a minute to go Morton marked and, rather than hold and ice the clock, played on and ambitiously attacked the goals from outside 50 in the wet. The ball went out on the full and, more important, possession was lost. Port goaled within seconds and a win that was within touching distance was lost.
Terry Wallace singled out the moment after the game for a stinging attack, declaring that such moments would cost him his job. Many players figured the attack was worse than Morton's behaviour for it revealed the coach's selfishness.
"Like I said at the time, you have to take the emotion out of it and look at the facts, and the facts are that that day I made a mistake. Did it cost us the game, did it not? I think about the mistake more than what was said," Morton said.
Interestingly Morton has since been in a similar situation and again played on — this time 30 metres out — and kicked the goal.
"Footy is a game where you have to play to your strengths and back yourself and one of my strengths is snapping goals and I practise it a lot, so I have to back myself to kick the goal. It's like the great Babe Ruth saying 'don't let the fear of striking out stop you trying to hit'. I can't let the fear of missing stop me trying to kick a goal," he said.
It was also an understandable desire to seize the moment for a player who had spent his career trying to do just that, between adversity's strikes.
Morton was taken by the Eagles as a father-son selection before the rules were altered to ensure that his talented younger brothers, Jarryd and Cale, could not also be priority selections. After three years the sentiment of taking a former WAFL star had gone. Thus Ben Cousins will not be the only player running onto the ground tonight wanting to show his former club what they are missing out on.
"When I stepped into the AFL I was light and I tried to put weight on and I got a lot of injuries — the first two years there I was the most injured player at the club — and West Coast in that period were very strong and dominant and they didn't have the luxury of playing kids for extended periods of time to develop them," he said.
"I just wanted to get away and get back to being me and playing like me. There was no tension about it; I spoke with John Worsfold about it and we shook hands and went our ways.
"It's hard because when you leave a club after 12 games in three years are you treated as a player who has played 12 games? Or are you treated as a fourth-year player? I am in my fifth year now but I have only played 40 games, I have a lot of catching up to do with the players of my era.
"I always compare myself to the guys I was drafted with — Brett Deledio and Buddy and Jarryd Roughead — and I know I am a long way behind them. I don't see myself as fulfilling my potential until I can influence games the way they do. Maybe it will never happen, but that is the way I measure myself."
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