Eels' Mortimer is a Bellamy type of player that slipped through Storm's grasp
The Age
Wednesday September 30, 2009
PARRAMATTA five-eighth Daniel Mortimer is Craig Bellamy's type of player, which makes it especially galling for the Storm coach that the little five-eighth was once on scholarship to Melbourne.Yet, if Brett Finch €” Mortimer's opponent in Sunday's grand final €” had not been released from Parramatta earlier this year, would Mortimer be starting the game?It's a question that will have more relevance if the Eels win the 2009 premiership via Mortimer, because the Storm have been searching for a long-term five-eighth since Scott Hill left.Mortimer, who recently turned 20, trained with the Storm in the 2006 off-season, but was released to play SG Ball for the Eels.Asked why Melbourne allowed Mortimer to slip away, Bellamy said: "You'll have to ask Sully," a reference to the Storm's then-recruitment officer, Peter O'Sullivan.O'Sullivan is regarded as the NRL's best talent scout, having signed Greg Inglis and Israel Folau to the Storm, yet Mortimer would appear to be the one who got away."Logistics," is O'Sullivan's one-word reason for Mortimer's release. "Because his parents lived in Orange, Parramatta was so much closer."He could drive up to Parramatta on the Saturday, only a two-hour trip, play SG Ball, and go home the next day."If we'd signed him to a contract, we would have had to relocate him to Brisbane to play in our feeder team."However, Inglis and Folau were resettled in Brisbane. Why not Mortimer?"He wasn't on the agenda then," O'Sullivan conceded, while resisting the urge to say no other sport requires its talent pickers to forecast as far ahead as Nostradamus."The standout point about him was he was such a competitor."Translation: he was too small, or too slow, or not overly skillful."He was tiny, a midget," O'Sullivan said of the 79-kilogram No. 6, before adding, "And he hasn't put a lot [of weight] on since."But didn't the scouts say that about his uncle, half Steve Mortimer, Canterbury's greatest ever player?"An endurance athlete is how you would describe him," O'Sullivan said, before adding, "I'd have to say he's the sort of player 'Bellyache' [Bellamy] loves."Bellamy agrees, saying: "He was with us for a while. A good style of kid. He trained hard."He was a low-maintenance player. He went about his business without any fanfare and worked hard. He's my type of player. I can see why he's doing well."I'm not sure why Sully didn't go on with him."Greg Brentnall, chairman of the Victorian Rugby League and a 1980 premiership teammate of Mortimer's father, Peter, agrees geography was the reason the Storm did not contract the 2007 Australian Schoolboy."They live at Orange and he had two brothers playing in Parramatta's system. It was an easier fit for him," Brentnall said."From a football point of view, we would have loved to have got him."Asked to describe Mortimer's assets, Brentnall could well have been speaking about uncle Steve, winner of four premierships with the Bulldogs."A born footballer," he said. "Never far off the football."He's such a competitor and has so much confidence in himself."The first time I saw him in the top grade was in a tight game where the Eels were behind."It was a crucial time in the game. He had the confidence to grubber for himself in behind the line, regathered, drew the full-back and unloaded to the big front-rower, Fuifui [Moimoi], who scored under the posts."He a real terrier. He's not the most gifted player I've ever seen, but he's got that Steve Mortimer determination."Everybody said his uncle wouldn't make it and look what happened."Yet Finch, the man who fled to Melbourne, giving Mortimer his opportunity, is owed something after playing in two losing grand finals.Perhaps, as has been written elsewhere, Mortimer's time has not yet come.
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