By Matt Findlay & Kev Nagle

Jakob Morrison has made Souths’ No.9 jersey his own in 2021, but he may never have had the chance to do so without being given what he called ‘a second chance’ several years ago.

The livewire son of former Kiwi Test fast bowler Danny Morrison admits he could have ended up on a different path without the opportunity to move to Brisbane Grammar to finish his schooling.

“I went to Brisbane Grammar a year late because I got into a bit of trouble on the Sunshine Coast,” Morrison, now 21, said.

“I spoke to Ronnie Cochrane (then BGS director of sport) though and they let me in, they gave me a second chance which has worked out really well for me.”

He admits he has best mate and former Queensland Schools teammate Harry McMahon to thank for pushing him to Souths too, along with Magpies coach Todd Dammers too of course.

“I’d played a bit of [Premier Rugby] at UQ in 2019, but I wasn’t that sharp,” Morrison said

“[McMahon] was injured in 2019 but Todd had been in contact with him too, so I said to him I’d go to some pre-season sessions with Souths (in 2020) if that’s where he was going.

“I probably do need to thank Harry, 100 per cent, we actually joke about that. We got stuck in at Souths and Todd seemed pretty excited to get us on board.”

Morrison was pitted against Billy Rutherford for Souths’ halfback spot last year, before cementing his place at the base of the ruck this season.

“I was on and off but had a big growth year, I haven’t really looked back since,” Morrison said.

Th 21-year-old has been impressive this season although he admits he has plenty more to offer, true of the seventh-placed Magpies too. Souths are sitting seventh after slumping to two straight defeats at the hands of GPS and UQ.

“It’s been frustrating, because the talent and desire is there but we’ve not quite put it together. We’ve been unlucky at times and had some injuries, but we’ve got more in us,” he said.

“There’s been times we’ve dug deep and been good, but still not quite got over the line too. But we’ve got six games left and they’re all win-able for us, we’ve still got a lot of belief we can make a run for the finals.”

Souths are nine points outside the top four but, crucially, don’t have to face either the undefeated UQ or second-placed Jeeps again – until the finals, potentially.

The Magpies do take on fifth-placed Wests on Saturday, fourth-placed Brothers the week after and then third-placed Bond University in round 18 though.

But they’ve already beaten two of those outfits this year and the game they lost was a thrilling, two-point defeat to Brothers, so there’s reason for confidence.

“We were really sharp against Bond a few weeks ago, but maybe we thought the game would come to us against Jeeps. Then UQ, well, they slapped us up a bit last weekend,” he admitted.

“But we’ve got more to offer, I do too individually. We were strong against Wests last time around and there’s no better time to kick-start our season again.

“We certainly shouldn’t be written off yet.”