Brett Morris’ breakout form at fullback prompted calls for his inclusion as the NSW custodian this season, but the prolific tryscorer credits his move back to the wing as the reason for his game-winning hat-trick against Melbourne.

Morris, who took over the St Gorge Illawarra No.1 jersey from Kyle Stanley in round three, initially embraced the move which resulted in a statistical eruption – Morris averaged 183 metres per game for his first five matches at the back.

But as the NRL season wore on so did Morris’ workload, resulting in a dip in form as the Dragons slipped from finals contention.

It led to coach Steve Price switching the Australia and NSW representative back to his favoured left wing position against Cronulla in round 19 – and after six tries in three matches it appears to be paying immediate dividends.

“I’ve obviously played fullback most of the year, but the body is getting very tired,” Morris said.

“… There’s a lot more running (at fullback) than there is on the wing.

“We have a joke about it that it’s two people’s work the amount of running you do.

“You should get paid two peoples wages to play fullback these days.”

Morris said he supported the decision to put Jason Nightingale into the fullback role, and believed it was playing a part in the Dragons late season revival.

The 26 points they scored against the free-falling Storm was their best offensive display since their 28-24 Anzac Day win over the Sydney Roosters.

“It’s a pretty tough job and I think Nighty is doing a wonderful job there at the moment,” Morris said.

“… I think that first 35 minutes was some of the best footy we’ve played all year. We looked crisp and we probably offloaded at the right times.

“A lot of people were bagging us about our offence but it’s definitely a work in progress, especially with a couple of positional changes.

“It’s not always going to work straight away and we’ve slowly been building.”

Dragons captain Ben Hornby said Morris’ hat-trick, which included two length of the field intercept tries, broke the spirit of the Storm, who have now lost five in a row for the first time since 2002.

“Brett Morris is just unbelievable at the moment,” Hornby said.

“He scored a couple of long range tries and I guess that might have broken their hearts.”