Some young players simply join the right club at the wrong time, and eventually have to forge careers elsewhere, writes RUSSELL HOLMESBY

AT ONE point they were glittering prizes in the eyes of recruiters – gems that powerful clubs saw as catalysts to a successful future.
But for Mitch Morton, Jason Gram and Craig Bolton, the reality of joining such strong lists proved to be a curse.
In the end they couldn’t nail down a place at their first clubs and the weight of numbers forced them to move on.
Now, late in 2008, they would all walk into the best 22 at their former clubs, which are left to ponder what might have been.
As the youngest of that trio Mitch Morton can sum up the journey that is the life of a young footballer striving to clamber into a top side. He tells of how he approached this year, his first at Richmond.
“The whole year was about winning some respect back,” he said.
“I let myself down a bit because I didn’t get a lot of game time at West Coast and when I did, I didn’t play the type of footy I wanted to play.
“It was about creating a brand of footy that I wanted to play – doing the tackling, the chasing and things I love doing. If I kick a couple of goals that’s a bonus and I’ve been lucky to get on the end of some good midfield work.”
Morton’s credentials for success in the AFL were impeccable.
The son of former Claremont star Noel Morton, he was always watched closely by recruiters and he ticked all the boxes after being picked up under the father-son rule at the 2004 draft.
He played three games late in 2005 – no mean feat in a West Coast side that would make the Grand Final.
But the path is not always so simple.
“I started off with a few injuries and once you get behind you fall behind the eight-ball and almost try too hard and I guess I fell into that trap,” he said.
“I was an 18 or 19-year-old kid and felt I had to go over and beyond to win some respect back.
“Next thing it was my second or third year and I hasn’t played a lot of games and was probably trying too hard.”
No matter his credentials, any player not getting a regular game knows that he is under the hammer come trade time, and when he had just 12 senior games next to his name by the end of last year, Morton’s name went into the draft mix.
“I probably thought after my second year that if things didn’t go well in my third year I was a chance to seek more opportunities,” he said.
“But I knew I had to put my head down and bum up and if I didn’t play a good third year and put in some hard yards and play some good footy I would be under pressure.”
At the time West Coast was a just beaten finalist and had no idea that its fortunes would plummet to the extent they have this year
“When I heard Richmond was interested I was over the moon and only talked to Richmond and was absolutely stoked to get to the club I wanted to be at,” Morton said.
“They have put a lot of faith in me and backed me in a bit and I’ve been down the last few weeks but they still played me and I bounced back into a bit of form.”

JASON GRAM was Brisbane’s first choice at the 2001 national draft with selection No.19 and it was clear from the start he was acutely aware that he would have to work incredibly hard to carve a niche for himself.
Brisbane measured all of its players – young and old – in 11 disciplines just before the Christmas break of 2001 and Gram finished in the top 10 in seven of those tests.
Off-season testing is one thing, but breaking into a premiership combination is something altogether different!
Of course the Lions weren’t just another premiership team. They turned out to be a powerhouse that strung together three flags and reached four Grand Finals on the trot, and places were at a premium.
Gram sneaked in for two games in 2003, but was very much a bit player on a big stage.
At the end of the year, the Lions reluctantly traded him to St Kilda for selection No.23 in the national draft.
Kinnear Beatson was recruiting manager for Brisbane at the time.
“Jason was drafted with the view to being a long-term winger and half-back flanker who could run with the ball and use it well,” Beatson said. “He hadn’t played a lot of TAC footy at the time.”
The Brisbane team was a confident and battle hardened unit and the shy young man from Sale was thrust into a scenario that would have been difficult for a teenager.
“It was a confident environment and for a quiet, introverted kid like Jason it wasn’t the easiest environment to be around,” recalls Beatson.
Gram says that there weren’t just the players in the team ahead of him. There was also a whole group of players waiting in the wings with him.
“They had four or five All-Australians in the side plus blokes like Aaron Shattock and Des Headland who couldn’t get a game,” Gram said.
He recalls that some of the transition was eased by the fact that he lived with another former Gippsland boy in Dylan Mclaren.
“If he hadn’t been there it would have been extra hard. Don’t get me wrong, when I got there one of the first things we did together was to go to the races and everyone made me really welcome. Everyone came up and talked to me. But the hard thing was when it came to footy – to get a look-in.”
Gram soon realised that the possibility of forcing his way into a half-back post was remote with the likes of Marcus Ashcroft, Chris Scott, Brad Scott and Tim Notting ahead of him.
“Des Headland, Aaron Shattock and Richard Hadley were others trying to break in. I was playing twos and I remember Headland playing twos in my first year and getting 40 touches and kicking five goals a game.”
Gram can relate to Morton’s comments about feeling like he had to make every moment count when he finally did get a sniff of senior action.
“In my first game I didn’t come on until after half time,” Gram said. “That was hard because you prefer to get on as soon as possible and get a quick taste of it. To sit there for all the first half was hard.
“Then in the second game over at Subiaco against Freo I didn’t get on until the last quarter. I was as nervous as hell and to come on in the last quarter when it was close, you try a little but too hard rather than playing your normal game.”
That match was a tight contest Fremantle won by three points. In the frantic closing minutes Gram experienced the nightmare that every new player fears.
“I came on and I virtually gave them a goal when I kicked into Longmuir. He kicked it off the ground and it trickled through for a goal. In four or five minutes I had three touches and one of them gave Freo a goal! The Lions hadn’t lost many games, so it was bad to be part of a loss.”
After the match Gram was distraught, but he was reassured by coach Leigh Matthews.
“Later in the week we had a meeting and Leigh said that if I did get dropped the following week it was nothing to do with that incident. Because I was so destroyed after the game, he said it showed how much I really did care. He said he was proud of the way I handled it.”
Gram says he did not impose any time-line upon himself in which he had to “make it”.
“Into the second year when I was emergency in such a good team I thought that maybe if I was somewhere else I would be getting a run. Maybe about Round 16 I started thinking about looking somewhere else – perhaps back in Melbourne in my home town. I always through I could play AFL, but even for the next couple of years it looked like I would be stuck on the fringes.”
When he crossed to St Kilda, Gram had to start all over again at a new club and his run with injuries meant that things didn’t fall into place immediately.
“We went to London and I had never had any injuries. I’d had a knee scrape but that was about it. I played the first NAB Cup game and did a hamstring in the third quarter. For the rest of the year I kept doing the hamstring. I played two senior games and got to about Round 16 and did another hamstring.
“That season was destroyed because of hamstrings and the next year I broke a collarbone in the first intra-club game, which put me out for eight weeks. I fired up the following season and finally got to play some good footy.”
He admits that his confidence hit rock bottom.
“I thought it might be all over. I’d only played a handful of games and hadn’t really proved anything. I spoke to Grant Thomas and said I just wanted one more year to prove what I could do. I trained hard and did all the running and played the NAB Cup games and Round 1 of 2006 and never looked back after that.”
At the same time as Gram was trying to make headway with the Lions, a slightly older player was also finding it hard to grab a place in the Brisbane team.

CRAIG BOLTON was a different type of footballer to Gram, but he too, could not achieve regular selection as he came to grips with the speed of the game, decision making at the top level and the ability to hit targets.
“Craig was in and out of the side, but you couldn’t find someone more dedicated,” says Beatson.
“He might not have been the most skilful, but he was as tough as nails and disciplined, too.”
Like Gram and Morton, Bolton felt the need to make an instant impression whenever a chance came.
“Often you would come off the bench and only get a bit of a run and you would try to do something special and really impress,” he said. “It was something I felt.”
In 2000 he played most of the year at senior level, but breaks didn’t go his way.
“I played 15 games and got injured in that year, then the next two years I had injuries. But it wasn’t just the injuries, I was in and out even when I was fit.”
And there were major barriers to getting a game.
“There were guys like Darryl White, Chris Scott and Brad Scott,” Bolton said.
“It was a very strong defence and it was always going to be an uphill battle to get a game. It was a great side and good to be part of, but I was 22 when I left and I realised that at that point I had only played a bit of footy.
“If I was going to establish myself I was going to have to play consistent senior footy and I knew there weren’t going to be any guarantees up there.
“I didn’t think I was going to get a senior game, so it was time to look elsewhere.”
There was also the gap in class between AFL football and local level with the reserves.
“The Brisbane comp was reasonable when I was playing. But one thing in the back of my mind was that no other clubs really knew I was out there when I wasn’t playing senior footy. That was one of the reasons to make a move. At 22 people would start to forget who I was if I didn’t make a move.”
The depth at Brisbane was almost insurmountable.
“It was a battle every week trying to get a game against blokes like Des Headland,” Bolton said.
“Daniel Bradshaw was even in the reserves a lot back then, and when I first got to Brisbane, Simon Black and Luke Power hadn’t even cemented spots.
The crunch for Bolton came in late 2002.
“There were a few games when I would have hoped to have played, but didn’t get picked and I started to think things aren’t working out here – even when there is an opportunity they don’t see a place for me. It was late in the piece that season.”
Not surprisingly, Bolton’s confidence began to sag
“I did have some doubts creeping in. Obviously when you are only playing every second or third week you start to wonder. I definitely knew I could play and that’s why I wanted to go to Sydney and give it a crack.
“Any self confidence that I had lost was quickly re-instilled by Paul Roos and the other coaches giving me a crack straight up,” he said.
“The start was really important coming to Sydney. He said ‘We are going to play you and we know you are going to make mistakes because you haven’t played a lot of footy. We’ll give you a go for the first five or six weeks and don’t worry about being dropped.’ It gave me huge confidence and belief that I had never had before.”
Bolton’s turnaround had the perfect ending with All-Australian selection and – the ultimate icing on the cake – an AFL premiership in 2005.
“That wasn’t even on my mind at the time when I left Brisbane,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it turned out like that.”
Beatson readily acknowledges the factor that Morton referred to, when detailing the pressure on a youngster on the fringe of regular selection and feeling they have to make every minute count when they do get a brief run.
“The player starts to doubt his own ability,” Beatson said. “They lose confidence and become more concerned about making a mistake. That’s not the best way to play your football.”
For recruiters like Beatson, there are pangs of sadness when players don’t end up making the grade for the club that originally secured them, but at the same time there is a degree of satisfaction that the recruiter’s choices ended up as good footballers at the highest level.
He takes a philosophical view.
“They get there because of their desire and passion to succeed. You can’t keep everybody, and players will only stay around for so long if opportunities don’t develop.”

RUSSELL HOLMESBY