Tigers assistant coach Steve Morris joined Konrad Marshall, a devoted Richmond supporter and Senior Writer for Good Weekend and The Age, on the second episode of Konversations with Konrad, sharing the untold stories of key Club figures.

Morris' journey to Tigerland was an unconventional as they come. Years on, he wouldn't change a thing.

He wasn't drafted to the Club that his father, Kevin Morris, won two premierships with, as a teenager, so he took the path less travelled to make his dreams of an AFL debut come true.

Now, after 87 games for Richmond, as well as leading the VFL side to the 2019 premiership, the assistant coach reflects on what it took to make it to the big time.

A St Bernard's boy who played with the Western Jets in hopes of being picked up in the 2006 or 2007 National Drafts, Morris found out the hard way that a crack at the top wouldn't come easily.

After struggling through injury during his bottom-aged Draft year, he fell behind and missed out again a year later. 

It left the then-teenager heartbroken, fearing his chance to play at the top level was all but over.

"I thought I was probably going to miss out. I was devastated. It was my lifelong dream. I always wanted to play footy," he said on episode two of Konversations with Konrad.

"I was absolutely devastated. I trained with Richmond when I was 16 and then when I was 18, I trained with Collingwood, Melbourne and Essendon for a week each. I was hopeful that maybe one of those teams would take a punt on me.

"It was probably then that I realised the pressure I'd put on myself to fulfil the dream."

The final nail in the coffin came with Melbourne's last pick of the 2007 AFL Rookie Draft.

"I remember sitting in front of a computer. I was at my godparents' house at the time. I can't even remember why I was there. I was waiting for the computer to load and it loaded. Up came 'S. Valenti'. Shane Valenti got picked with the last pick to go to Melbourne," Morris recounted.

"It was disappointing and that sort of led to the decision to move over to South Australia."

Morris left his life in Victoria behind to join SANFL team, West Adelaide, in 2008, with the aim of keeping his AFL dream alive.

That bold choice didn't come without pain.

"When asked the question of why I moved over to South Australia, I often say part of it was I wanted to put myself under the nose of other clubs. There's another part - that I was pretty embarrassed, that I was not good enough to get an opportunity to play at AFL level," he said.

Morris' start was far from perfect, forced to undergo a shoulder reconstruction in 2008, then a knee reconstruction a year later.

While the setbacks felt never ending, by 2011, Morris found his feet, named in the SANFL Team of the Year, also collecting West Adelaide's Best and Fairest.

His standout SANFL season caught the attention of Richmond, who signed Morris to the Club before the 2011 AFL Draft.

However, GWS, who were entering the league just months later, had priority access to non-selected players from previous Drafts, including Morris. The Giants agreed to swap picks with Richmond in exchange for Morris, on-trading him to the Tigers.

And the impact was immediate at Tigerland.

Morris would debut against Carlton in Round 1 of the 2012 season, going on to play 87 AFL games as a small lockdown defender, being aimed in the Club's senior leadership group in 2015 for one season.

But again injury hampered his season in 2016, when he ruptured his ACL in Round 11. Morris would return in 2017, but played just one senior game before settling into the VFL side, that went on to lose the Grand Final to Port Melbourne. He was delisted at year's end.

Yet it didn't dampen his love for Richmond, as Morris went on to sign with the Tigers' VFL squad in 2018.

A year on, he was a premiership captain, after Richmond defeated Williamstown by three points in the 2019 Grand Final, a week before the AFL premiership win over GWS.

After his playing days drew to a close, Morris took over as Richmond VFL coach in 2022 and was known for his player reviews following each match.

"There's times that I would have got it wrong, absolutely, no doubt," he said.

"But I do focus on the balance. I'm hoping that majority of the players, whilst I deliver an honest message, they would know that it comes from a place of care and hopefully through the relationship that I've built up with them over the journey. They understand where it's coming from.

"I'm pretty big on relationships. I'm pretty big on caring for the person first and foremost.

"I think that helps you have those honest conversations. That's always a balance but hopefully I get that right more often than not."

The 36-year-old is currently an assistant coach to Adem Yze, leading the senior backline.

"I've just loved seeing guys go on and succeed that probably didn't even believe in themselves," Morris said.

Join Konrad Marshall every second Wednesday for Konversations with Konrad. Richmond midfielder Tim Taranto is the next special guest.