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By Darren Clayton
Spearheaded by Brisbane defender Noah Answerth, the second edition of the Ladbrokes Ultimate Driver Championship will have a distinct Lions flavour.
26-year-old Answerth has teamed up with Brisbane businessman Andy Colenso to secure a slot in the UDC for and have chosen Sydney based reinsman Robbie Morris as their driver for the series.
They have named their slot the ‘Lion Kings’ to mirror Brisbane’s success on the big AFL stage, and while Morris is comfortably at home driving winners at Albion Park, he is feverishly brushing up on his AFL knowledge ahead of the series.
Known as the Mayor of Menangle, Morris is excited about the opportunity to compete in this year’s UDC after spectating from home in 2025.
“As a driver, it’s a privilege to be asked to represent someone in their slot,” Morris said.
“Watching it last year from afar, it enticed you to really want to be involved and I was pretty lucky early days that I was asked to be involved in this year.”
Having driven horses previously for Colenso, when it came to selecting a driver for the Lion Kings, it seemed a natural fit to team up with Morris who has driven over 2,300 winners in his career to date.
A nine-time Group 1 winning reinsman, Morris is a regular centurion in the NSW Premiership, having recorded 100-win seasons on 14 successive occasions, with 2025 the highest stake earning term of his career from the 195 winners he guided to victory.
A NSW Premiership winner in the 2019/20 season, he also holds the distinction of being the only driver other than Grant Dixon to have driven Leap To Fame on race day.
The affable and composed Morris won’t feel any extra pressure despite the big stakes on offer to the Championship winning syndicates, laughing about his future drives for Colenso if things don’t go to plan.
“If I’m stuffing this up, they’ll probably sack me from the ones that I drive every week,” he joked.
“But really, no matter what you do, you want to do it at the best of your ability.
“So, I’m looking forward to getting there and hopefully pick up the nice ones.”
The Lion Kings may have some knowledge and experience of the AFL draft, but on Wednesday they will enter new territory when the Driver draft is held at Albion Park.
Strategy and selections seem to vary across all the teams in the UDC, and the newcomers for 2026 will also bring their own ideas and formula to the table.
“We have a form student that will be doing all the early work once the fields come out and he will come along, he will have his rankings and mock markets done,” Morris said.
“And I might get Nathan (Dawson), see if he can come in and just have a look with me because obviously, he knows the majority of them.
“I’m lucky. I come to Brisbane, sort of 6 or 8 weeks a year, for the carnivals and things like that.
“So, I’ve, I’ve driven a fair bit up there and always watching the races up there on a Saturday night.”
Picking the right horses may be a vital part of the process, but there is more to just finding the winners, with consistency a critical part of maximising the points across all 20 races to chase that podium finish.
“From what I’ve seen and done on it, if you can be consistent, you know, it really doesn’t matter how many you win. you can manage to run sort of top 4 or 5 more often than not, it’ll hold you in a good place come the pointy end of it.”
If Morris is there at the pointy end of the UDC, he might just become a Brisbane Lions convert, if not already – you’ll hear our mighty roar
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