Canterbury’s star recruit Brett Morris is eyeing the prospect of adding another premiership and combining with twin Josh to pen a successful new chapter to the history of the NRL’s renowned family club.
The backline siblings, who have both represented NSW and Australia, have been reunited after Josh headed to the Bulldogs in late 2008 following two seasons playing alongside his twin for St George Illawarra.
Brett was part of the Dragons’ premiership-winning 2010 side, but the Red V have missed the finals for the past three seasons.
Back in their most successful era of the 1980s, the Bulldogs’ success was built around two sets of brothers.
Almost half of their 1980 grand final-winning side was drawn from the Mortimer and Hughes clans.
Steve, Chris and Peter Mortimer all played in the triumphant sides in 1980, 1984 and 1985, with Graeme, Mark and Garry Hughes also part of the 1980 line-up.
Josh Morris experienced the heartache of playing in Canterbury’s 2012 and 2014 grand final losses to Melbourne and South Sydney.
Those near misses along with his twin’s presence persuaded Brett his future was with the Bulldogs, rather than the Dragons.
“The opportunity to win another competition is something that I wanted to do and I think at the Dogs, they’ve got a great squad, they’ve got a great coach,” Morris told AAP at Thursday’s launch of the Auckland Nines in Sydney.
“They’ve been in two grand finals in the last three years and I’m almost certain they are going to be in a few more.
“That’s one of the main reasons I signed, to try and win another comp.
“It’s going to be very enjoyable, we played our whole careers together up until Josh left (for the Bulldogs),” Brett said.
“We used to play backyard footy together and have heaps of fun so, for me personally, to finish my career with him, I couldn’t think of anything more that I would want to do.
“I know how much he brings out of me as a player and how much we feed off each other on the field.
“To be able to have that week in, week out now is going to be a great thing.”
While shoulder surgery prevented Brett from playing in the recent Four Nations tournament, the upside was it has enabled him to have a longer pre-season than in recent years, which he feels bodes well for 2015.
“I had the shoulder operation at the end of the year and went back to the Bulldogs very early to start my rehab,” he said.
“I’ve been training probably six weeks now, so the shoulder is feeling really good and the body is feeling really good.
“This is the first time I’ve done a long pre-season for quite some time, so usually when that happens I have a pretty good year the next year.”
