Dragons captaincy a career highlight: Morris 

His wardrobe is overflowing with Test and NSW jumpers, but Brett Morris says leading the Dragons for the first time will be one of the highlights of his career.

Coach Steve Price yesterday named a 16-man squad for the $2 million Auckland Nines tournament that will see Morris debut as the club's captain.

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The 27-year-old said the honour ranked highly in an already decorated career.

"This is a club I've followed my whole life," Morris said.

"The old boy [Steve Morris] played here and it's a huge honour to represent St George Illawarra.

"As a kid I followed the Dragons and every time I played in the backyard I was always the Dragons, so it [captaincy] is a huge honour.''

Marquee signing Gareth Widdop, who made his debut for the club in Friday night's trial against the Illawarra Cutters, was a notable omission from the squad as Price manages the workload of his star players after the World Cup.

Morris admitted the new nine-a-side game would be a step into the unknown.

"It's a different style of footy that not many of us have played before, so it's going to be quite enjoyable," Morris said. "It's a completely different game, there's less blokes on the field and there's a lot of tactics involved.

"Obviously the faster, smaller guys are going to enjoy having the open spaces there but you need to get up the park as well, so there's still room in the game for those big, mobile forwards.

"There's also the skill factor.

"A lot of guys like to offload and offloads in this hybrid game are going to be a big factor in scoring tries.

"I think the teams that work it out the best with the right mix of size and speed will probably go a long way."

The tournament will be the star winger's first appearance for the Dragons since returning from last year's World Cup and he said he was excited to join a side that notched 16 tries against the Cutters.

"There's certain things we need to work on but our attack showed a lot of improvement from last year, which is what we've been working on over the preseason. We've got a lot of guys there now who are training well and putting their hands up in the trials.

"It's a headache that we like to have, because in the past we haven't had that depth."