Bombertalk

Megan wrote:So what pick number is this for us? Our second pick?

First pick in the Preseason Draft, I think.

Megan wrote:So what pick number is this for us? Our second pick?

Pick #2 of the Pre-Season draft. Carlton have already committed to taking Cain Ackland with the 1st pick

That's a great get. The guy may be 29 but he's still a frickin tank. Top work by Sheeds and crew.

Fantastic. Absolutely love it.

Suffer in ya jocks, Brisbane.

Uh, yes misread, apologies. Ignore me I find all the draft stuff confuzzling

By the way, i just spoke to another BTer who has a cousin who works at the Lions.

Said that he had heard ages ago that Michael was never retiring, it was all a smokescreen. Confirmed that he left Brisbane for a whole other 'personal' reason, which I probably shouldnt post on a public forum...

Suffice to say, he's absolutely fine, he has no problems or issues at all, and he'll keep playing good footy for a number of years. Awesome pick up by the club.

Staggy wrote:By the way, i just spoke to another BTer who has a cousin who works at the Lions.

Said that he had heard ages ago that Michael was never retiring, it was all a smokescreen. Confirmed that he left Brisbane for a whole other 'personal' reason, which I probably shouldnt post on a public forum...

Suffice to say, he's absolutely fine, he has no problems or issues at all, and he'll keep playing good footy for a number of years. Awesome pick up by the club.

Yeah, you get the feeling all is not well up there. There seems to be a lot of players jumping ship for one reason or another.

Bit of a surprise, but a worthy pickup...Just what we need. If we get Hansen, he can take a the 3rd or 4th best backman, and allow him to find his feet, instead of being thrown into the deep end! He'll provide some great strength down there, and leadership!

Staggy wrote:By the way, i just spoke to another BTer who has a cousin who works at the Lions.

Said that he had heard ages ago that Michael was never retiring, it was all a smokescreen. Confirmed that he left Brisbane for a whole other 'personal' reason, which I probably shouldnt post on a public forum...

Suffice to say, he's absolutely fine, he has no problems or issues at all, and he'll keep playing good footy for a number of years. Awesome pick up by the club.

Heard a very similar thing. Though I dont exactly know the "personal" issue, part of the reason was that he didnt like a few players up there.

Not sure if Brisbane won't stop this happenning. Pretty clear that Mal has worked his way around his contract (he was contracted for 2007), and it will be interesting to see what (if anything) Brisbane can do about it.

wooo hoooo party!

beautiful. I log on to BT and that's the best bit of news i've heard since Hirdy not retiring.

It works on so many levels:

1) You get a bloke who is a genuine "gorilla guard" so he can play on Hall, Tredrea, Brown (love to see that one!!!). We haven't had that for a long time.
2) It replaces whatever we lost (very little) when Solomon left, both in terms of having a key defender to mind the big guys and someone who can throw their weight around.
3) Provides some much-needed assistance to Fletcher.
4) Stops us from picking up some other recycled dud in the PSD like Henneman, Cloke, Makepeace etc.

I'm really stoked about this. The only reservation has to be that Michael did seem to be 'losing it' towards the end at Brisbane, but as others have already suggested, that may be due to specific circumstances at Brisbane rather than Michael's personal frame of mind.
If he's prepared to give it a professional, full-blooded go, we have pulled off a seriously good coup.

Well done!

EDIT: And don't underestimate Sheedy's role in this. Michael signing with us, as i see it, was contingent on him being allowed to continue with his charity and community work off the field, and Sheedy has always been a renowned advocate of that sort of thing. If there were a few Melbourne clubs chasing him, that would've played a large part in his decision to join Essendon over other, potentially more progressed clubs.

I reckon its awesome too - but i'm very concerned about whether or not the AFL will allow this to take place. Brisbane are makin a big noise about this and after the AFL allowed us to get Rama maybe they will not be to worried about shutting this down.

nmgilbert wrote:I reckon its awesome too - but i'm very concerned about whether or not the AFL will allow this to take place. Brisbane are makin a big noise about this and after the AFL allowed us to get Rama maybe they will not be to worried about shutting this down.

nothing outside the rules....but I imagine a clause will be added to footy contracts from now on....

for example I had one of these in my contract when I worked for a internet company a while ago. I had to refrain from entering the same business for a year after employment.

no doubt this will become common in football as well if the issue drags on.

we should be fine tho.

After getting it up the arse from the AFL since 2000....this feels beautiful!!! We are getting one back on all those bastards!!

Go ahead Vlad.... try and stop it...and have MM into the Supreme Court with a restraint of Trade action that you know he will win under the Trade Practices Act. You wouldn't dare.

Anyway...Watto retired and came back after being drafted by the WCE....so did Fish after playing with the Dawks.....whats the diff!!???

Filthy wrote:Go ahead Vlad.... try and stop it...and have MM into the Supreme Court with a restraint of Trade action that you know he will win under the Trade Practices Act. You wouldn't dare.

Anyway...Watto retired and came back after being drafted by the WCE....so did Fish after playing with the Dawks.....whats the diff!!???

And there is already a precedent set with the NRL. The AFL know there draft laws won't stand up in court so nothing will happen. All it will take is one player to challange the draft and there will be no draft. It will happen oneday and the AFL will be shitting themselves when it does.

Just to play devils advocate, it was only 12 months ago that everyone on BT was pissing in each other's pockets because of the signing of Campo. That never ended up being much of a coup after all.

It was only yesterday that Horsburgh was saying that the reason we didn't chase Aker too hard, was that we were looking at a flag in 2010, not make up the numbers in the 8 in the next couple. This signing goes against that, so which direction is the club heading?

We now have 2 very similar players in Fletch & Michael who both like to play in the back 50. A bloke like Barry Hall will still give both blokes the run around as he runs everywhere. We still haven't solved the problem of a CHB - we now have 2 FB's.

The story which some on here are too precious to write, is that Michael's missus used to get treated like a leper by the other BrisVegas players wives & girlfriends.

CameronClayton wrote: The story which some on here are too precious to write, is that Michael's missus used to get treated like a leper by the other BrisVegas players wives & girlfriends.

That's not the story.

And I chose not to write the actual story on here because its innappropriate. And i don't have first-hand knowledge of it, so it would also be irresponsible. Hardly being precious.

Suck shit Brisbane and Carlton!!!!

As if Carlton would've committed themselves to taking Cain Hackland in the PSD if they knew Mal Michael would be available.

I know they were talking up Bret Thorton during trade week, but seriously he's serviceable at best.

In terms of the Hall, Treadrea, Pavlich's etc....these would usually push deep against us because they knew Fletch didn't have the body to beat them in one on one contests. Not an option now if they push back to the gaolasquare Micheal will go with them because he has the body to go one on one with them, and while he is a tank of a man he quick for a man his size on the lead.

Now if they play these guys at CHF, thenplay Lee/Bradley/Hansen on them, they'll probably be taught a lesson or two, but the fact is that as they are playing up at CHF it isn't going to hurt us as much. It isn't too often that a CHF actually playing at CHF and not pushing deep into the forward 50 kicks massive bags of goals.

With Michael there, it would also allow us to experiment with Fletcher. Can you imagine Fletcher playing the third tall backmen role??

It also saves us from having to move Lucas to the backline, robbing us of a 50+ goal key forward.

Now sure we still don't have a clear CHB, but one of Lee, Bradley or Hansen with Fletcher helping them every chance he gets, it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

CameronClayton wrote:
It was only yesterday that Horsburgh was saying that the reason we didn't chase Aker too hard, was that we were looking at a flag in 2010, not make up the numbers in the 8 in the next couple. This signing goes against that, so which direction is the club heading?

There is a difference in chasing Aker and having to give up either #1 a couple of good players or #2 a couple of early picks. Getting Mal Michael the way we have has cost us FA, and we have without doubt the best pickup in the PSD. It means we didn't have to sign some complete hack because that's all there is.