NRL 2021: What Roosters prodigy Joseph Suaalii takes from the tears of B-Moz

The legend of Brett Morris doesn’t start with an NRL debut in 2006 at age 19. It goes all the way back to Minnamurra Primary School and a game against ‘some big Maori boys’.

Joseph Suaalii will arrive in first grade the way all prodigies do.

On the back of somebody else’s heartache.

Not that anyone ever really notices.

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Joseph Suaalii is all ears as Trent Robinson addresses his players.

But why would we?

With life before the likes of, say, Joey, Freddy, even Sonny so quickly forgotten from their first touch of the Steeden.

Yet with Suaalii? It’s different.

Has to be.

Especially now this hyped Sydney schoolboy is readying to prematurely replace — if not on Friday night, then certainly sometime soon — one of the greatest wingers who ever lived.

Which is exactly why Brett Morris has received so many bouquets this week.

Why his tears ran on the front page of The Daily Telegraph, too.

Which again, isn’t how it usually goes when making way for that Next Big Thing.

Just ask Reece Simmonds.

Joseph Suaalii will get his chance sooner rather than later at the Roosters.

Now a Wollongong coalminer, Simmonds’ own career finished standing by the Princes Highway — holding son Jack, still only six months old, in his arms beside a car that was out of petrol.

The year was 2006.

With Simmonds, only days earlier, still a first grade winger with St George Illawarra.

But then, well, that first of two twins arrived.

The son of Slippery Morris.

In this episode, Phil ‘Buzz’ Rothfield, Michael Carayannis and Adam Mobbs reflect on the career of Brett Morris, argue over who is in more trouble — Newcastle or Canberra, pay tribute to the late Bunny Reilly and discuss Xavier Coates becoming the latest Bronco to abandon ship.

A hulking teen who not only ran much faster than Simmonds, or weighed 20kg heavier, but owned an ability to both score and defend tries that, as old Dragons coach Nathan Brown remembers it now, “only comes from the man upstairs”.

So that’s why you picked him?

“He was just too good not to play,” Brown says.

“Reecey Simmonds, he’d done a great job. All the boys loved him.

B-Moz has left quite a legacy on the game.

“But when a player like Brett Morris arrives, I think even Reece would’ve sensed the bloke had too many things going for him.”

Which he did.

Especially given Simmonds hadn’t only teamed up in lower grades with both Morris twins, or shared rides to training — “in a car full of empty Coke bottles and lollie packets” — but also prank called their old man whenever the three downed schooners together.

“Even pretended to be Perry Haddock once,” he says.

So when Simmonds got to training that week before a Round 9 clash with Cronulla, he knew how bad things were that moment his mate was named ahead of him.

Or almost.

“Because game day, I ran out of petrol on the way to Cronulla,” he laughs. “Had my young son, who my parents were going to mind, in the car, too.

“So I’m standing by the highway with him and his car seat, waiting for (fellow Dragon) Chris Houston to collect us.”

Then later?

Morris celebrates winning the 2010 title with the Dragons.

“Played reserves, watched firsts, and Brett scored,” he says.

“But no regrets. I’m OK with being replaced by Brett Morris.”

Of course, know too that Morris undoubtedly took something from the career of Simmons.

That gutsy little winger who not only played at 80kg, but in 2011 was plucked from the Illawarra competition — four years after leaving the NRL and following three broken legs in the previous 12 months — for two more games with a Dragons side ravaged by State of Origin selections.

Which is the type of fight, undoubtedly, Morris displayed himself through not only 278 games, or 181 tries, but 18 Tests, 15 Origins and two NRL premiership.

A grit Suaalii should get to know, too.

Same deal Morris’s ability to span rugby league eras, with Roosters coach Trent Robinson explaining how that fella with special footy speed started out “like those 80s wingers we all loved” before transforming, when the game itself changed, into a flanker charging from the backfield like a prop.

“But while Brett adapted to that second style, he still kept the first,” says Robinson. “He mixed generations on the wing.”

Brown agrees, saying of the code’s fourth greatest tryscorer: “It never mattered what club he played for, who coached him, what the team was like, who was inside him, even his age; he just kept playing great.”

Morris made a big impression in his first season in 2006.

Speak with Laurie Daley, meanwhile, and he recounts the toughness of a winger who not only played the 2014 Origin opener with a fractured shoulder, but made the tackle that won the game.

“Brett’s career didn’t go so long because he was never injured,” Daley says. ”But because of his toughness, his ability to handle pain. He just kept turning up.”

Kiama local Steve Timms, who coached the Morris boys at Minnamurra Primary School, agrees.

“I remember playing in Canberra against a team of big Maori boys,” he recounts. “We had a lot of scared players that day.

“By halftime, some were even faking injuries to get off.

“But not Brett and Josh Morris. They just ripped in as usual.”

At which point you hope Suaalii is taking notes.

“Because a lot of guys with physical talent, they rely on it,” Robinson says. “It’s where they stop.

“But Brett would continually ask how he could adapt that to his defence, to catching the ball, to carrying out of a backfield.”

Brett nd Josh with dad Steve.

Brett and Josh started out at the Dragons.

More, too.

“Brett continually worked out what opponents were thinking,” Robinson continues.

“So rather than react to them, he’d anticipate what they would do.

“When we used to talk footy, he was always saying ‘I remember playing that guy, when he did this’.

“So when he scored tries, it was because he knew when a defender was going to stop, or go, whatever. His whole career, he played ahead of time.”

At least until that bastard ACL went.

A moment which leaves not only his club, but the entire game, feeling loss.

“And you need to leave space for that emotion,” Robinson says.

“Because it’s real. But the bell hasn’t rung for us either.

An unfortunate way to end a great career.

“So part of the emotion, too, is getting excited by what’s next.”

You mean Suaalii, right?

“No, the feeling isn’t based on that,” Robinson insists. “But while there’s disappointment and nostalgia for a career ended so abruptly, we’re still in a fight.

“Which definitely means opportunity for Joseph Suaalii, Matt Ikuvalu, Billy Smith.

“So, yes, we have cards to play that are really good.

“And we will play them.”

Originally published as NRL 2021: What Roosters prodigy Joseph Suaalii takes from the tears of B-Moz