Essendon sign Mal Michael

[The Kipster]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Yep, losing our draft picks for the first 3 rounds in the 1999 draft, we didn't get penalised at all

Did you receive a 1M fine as well?

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Mal lost the passion to continue his playing career in Brisbane. If he decides to continue his career at another club, so be it.

He had a contract. You cant just lose the passion, rip up the contract, and then regain the passion,and walk to another club for free. It makes contacts useless if this is allowed.

 

[inyourcool]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

I don't, no-one here does.

Hence why the allegations of draft tampering are a waste of time and come without any proof.

Regardless, another club has a pick before us. Why would we have forced Mal Michael into the PSD prior to his retirement, knowing that another club could take him before us?

Seems a rather wasted effort.

The announcement of Michael comes after Carlton (with 1st pick) has committed to Ackland in the PSD so there is no way to select Michael. Your argument there doesn't stack up. The whole system of drafting will collapse if this recruitment of Michael occurs as players can then simply retire when under contract and enter a draft later on. Might as well open the market to free agency!

 

[jules101]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Michael and Fletcher dont look comfortable away from the goalsquare...

 

[The Kipster]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Michael and Fletcher dont look comfortable away from the goalsquare...

At last a man with some sense...

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Regardless, another club has a pick before us. Why would we have forced Mal Michael into the PSD prior to his retirement, knowing that another club could take him before us?.

Its a free swing. Carlton have a youth policy and you'll likely pick up Michael. If not, you've lost nothing and Michael still gets to leave Brisbane mid-contract and return to Melbourne.

 

[campbell]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Bit of a bummer. Why would essendon want someone who quite obviously lacks morals and has zero loyalty? Lions did everything they could for him and he does this. Nasty move IMO by mal.

Having said that he was pretty blase this year and can't see him caring too much whether the bombers win or lose. And not much of a loss for bris as we are rebuilding and looking towards the future. The loss of mal will fast track the development of our younger players.

But would be nice to see some legal action and a full scale investigation in case anything illegal did occur.

Just my 2c.

Th

Settle down.How can you say Mal has no morals and no loyalty. We are the ones who refused a modified training schedule, we are the ones who said trade week, we won't trade him.
Sad that our club could not accomodate such a champion of our clubs needs.
We have turned into the hard assed Lions of late.

 

[one_twelve112]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Will this open a can of worms?

This may open the door to players who are not content with there current environment (city, salary, teammates, coaches, team performance etc...), despite being under a contract, to 'retire' and be drafted to a team they feel is more suitable.....Do we want this? Is this in the spirit of the game/sport?

 

[The Dice Man]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Im so tempted to get stuck into the Wimpy Hill boys here and call them the new Richmond after we started recruiting has-beens and never will bes during the Frawley era.

With Camporeale last year and the Dons looking at Rodan and Mal Michael it's certainly tempting... except Mal is a triple premiership player and will be a handy acquisition to any backline.

People laughed when TW recruited Mark Graham for a season, but fact is he was very valuable for that season, showing leadership and I imagine he came pretty cheap.

Camporeale and Michael are class players, if a bit long in the tooth and while they aren't going to help Essendon win a premiership, their experience and leadership will be valuable to the Bombers, who dont have as much experience on the ground as they used too.


Good luck to Mal. I met him last summer and he seemed like a decent bloke, but a very sneaky way of getting out of Brisbane IMO.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Th

Settle down.How can you say Mal has no morals and no loyalty. We are the ones who refused a modified training schedule, we are the ones who said trade week, we won't trade him.
Sad that our club could not accomodate such a champion of our clubs needs.
We have turned into the hard assed Lions of late.

It was your right to say no. You had a contract with him.

 

[Hap Hapablap]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

this is unbelievable. i thought he was gonna become a coach but it seems like hes really coming back into the fray. however, i dont see anything illegal what he did as brisbane refused to alter his lifestyle however he shouldve threatened brisbane of doing this so allowing brisbane to do a trade rather than creating a problem like this.

 

[_RT_]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Would this be such a huge issue if the player involved was not a Triple Premiership winner?

 

[The Dice Man]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

this is unbelievable. i thought he was gonna become a coach but it seems like hes really coming back into the fray. however, i dont see anything illegal what he did as brisbane refused to alter his lifestyle however he shouldve threatened brisbane of doing this so allowing brisbane to do a trade rather than creating a problem like this.

Im not sure whether it's illegal by the AFL rules or not, but it's certainly immoral and a bit of a dirty thing to do.

 

[one_twelve112]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Imagine this - your girlfriend of 5 years says to you "I don't want to be with you anymore because I don't want a boyfriend at the moment and want to concentrate on other things" (e.g. washing, ironing, cleaning...) and despite your broken heart, you let her walk away with a "******** you very much".....

A couple of weeks later, your at the local, sinking a few 'to forget' beers and in she walks with her 'new boyfriend'.

In many way I think this is the same.....

 

[loyallion]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

I seriously hope they do bring legal action into this (The Brisbane Lions) Because in my opinion Mal Micheal has been nothing but sneeky about this whole thing. All he had to do was tell the Lions that he no longer wanted to be a Lion and they could have got something in return for him or traded him instead he goes and does this I hope they sue the pants off of him.

 

[ant555]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Will this open a can of worms?

This may open the door to players who are not content with there current environment (city, salary, teammates, coaches, team performance etc...), despite being under a contract, to 'retire' and be drafted to a team they feel is more suitable.....Do we want this? Is this in the spirit of the game/sport?

You know the answer, the clubs make them honor their contract. It is not going to open the door for anything. I doubt it will continue to happen as clubs will simply get players to sign an agreement that if they retire and forfit the last year/years of their contract they cant play AFL for that period of time. Problem solved.There is no great retire and play again conspiracy going to happen.

 

[Longy413]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

The announcement of Michael comes after Carlton (with 1st pick) has committed to Ackland in the PSD so there is no way to select Michael. Your argument there doesn't stack up. The whole system of drafting will collapse if this recruitment of Michael occurs as players can then simply retire when under contract and enter a draft later on. Might as well open the market to free agency!

Try and put two and two together turbo.

Carlton announced they would sign Ackland after Michael had announced his retirement. So Carlton still had every opportunity to approach Michael and ask him to re-consider his retirement.

When Mal Michael retired, Carlton still had a live pick in the PSD. So therefore, Essendon pushing him into retirement so we could draft him into the PSD would have been a wasted effort, with Carlton still able to trump us.

 

[Philhawk]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but if this eventuates - would that mean Essendon would be looking to draft Leuenberger now with Pick 2?

 

[Longy413]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Im so tempted to get stuck into the Wimpy Hill boys here and call them the new Richmond after we started recruiting has-beens and never will bes during the Frawley era.

With Camporeale last year and the Dons looking at Rodan and Mal Michael it's certainly tempting... except Mal is a triple premiership player and will be a handy acquisition to any backline.

People laughed when TW recruited Mark Graham for a season, but fact is he was very valuable for that season, showing leadership and I imagine he came pretty cheap.

Camporeale and Michael are class players, if a bit long in the tooth and while they aren't going to help Essendon win a premiership, their experience and leadership will be valuable to the Bombers, who dont have as much experience on the ground as they used too.


Good luck to Mal. I met him last summer and he seemed like a decent bloke, but a very sneaky way of getting out of Brisbane IMO.

I almost don't believe it.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Would this be such a huge issue if the player involved was not a Triple Premiership winner?

Who he is has nothing to do with it.

He is a valuable tradeable commodity who despite having a contract with his existing club, is going to break the draft rules by entering the preseason draft.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Try and put two and two together turbo.

Carlton announced they would sign Ackland after Michael had announced his retirement. So Carlton still had every opportunity to approach Michael and ask him to re-consider his retirement.

When Mal Michael retired, Carlton still had a live pick in the PSD. So therefore, Essendon pushing him into retirement so we could draft him into the PSD would have been a wasted effort, with Carlton still able to trump us.

Still it was a free swing for Essendon with no downside if Michael had ended up at Carlton instead. Worth the punt. Absolutely.

 

[Philhawk]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Explain how it's draft tampering, how can it be if we didn't talk to Michael until after he left Brisbane and another club has a pick before us?

And how would you know that? Since when do people believe stuff that's written in the papers?

It's blatant draft tampering as Brisbane only got rid of the last year of his contract thinking that he'd never pull on another AFL jumper again.

 

[kelvin_sheedy]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

Michael and Fletcher dont look comfortable away from the goalsquare...

Then play both in the goal square. Michael on the bigger body and Fletch on the small. Fletch can play on anyone.

This might release Fletch to set up more of the play with raking long passes out from defence.

 

[The Dice Man]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

I almost don't believe it.

 

[campbell]

Re: Essendon sign Mal Michaels

I seriously hope they do bring legal action into this (The Brisbane Lions) Because in my opinion Mal Micheal has been nothing but sneeky about this whole thing. All he had to do was tell the Lions that he no longer wanted to be a Lion and they could have got something in return for him or traded him instead he goes and does this I hope they sue the pants off of him.

We refused to trade him.

AFL does not want this in court. The whole draft system would come crashing down.Restraint of trade anyone.