Micky O to announce retirement this afternoon

Swans120

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#76
http://sportal.com.au/AFL-news-display/oloughlin-flag-is-no-1-72775

MOL says he won't be staying in footy, rather he'll be focusing on his family and work with the indigenous community, as he has done for years.

It'll be right in the middle of uni, but i'm gonna try as hard as physically possible to get down to Melbourne for the Tigers game. Dad's family lives down there so luckily i never have any trouble getting accomoadtion when i go down there for a Swans game! :D

I reckon there is a good chance Mick might get rested for a week, so he can do his 300th in Sydney. That would be just awesome being able to do give him his proper congratulations in Sydney, and then we can farewell him, Leo and Crouchy against the Lions in style.

There is no reason that the Swans can not be motivated to perform for the rest of this season with Mick's career coming to an end. They should all want to send him out on as high a note as possible, and i'm sure they will!
 

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Swans120

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#78
For anyone who's thinking about going down for the Richmond game, Virgin and Jetstar are both having really good sales - I booked flights for $118 return :thumbsu:
wow, brilliant prices there Hooley, nicely done. haha it's been 10 hours and u've go the airfares already...you don't muck around do you? haha
 

legend166

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Thread starter #82
You can get flights, accomodation and tickets for $250, easy.

I'll probably wait to see if that will actually be his 300th before I buy anything.
 

cmndstab

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#86
Glad to hear he's sticking on for the remainder of the year, I hope he can manage enough games to get to his 300th :thumbsu: He's been an ornament of the competition, what a brilliant career.
 

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kira

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#87
A premiership player, All-Australian and member of the Indigenous Team of the Century, O'Loughlin said he never intended to stick around in Sydney after he arrived from Adelaide as a 17-year-old.

"I'd ring Mum and say, 'I want to come home, I want to come home', and she'd say, 'There's nothing here for you, stay there'," O'Loughlin said.

"I said, 'No, I'm getting on a plane', and she said, 'Well, you haven't got a bed, I've given it to your cousin'. I had no bed to go back to, so I had to stay."

O'Loughlin tearfully dedicated his career to his mother Muriel.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25681392-19742,00.html

i thought that was some great tough love from him mum, so thankyou MOL's mum :)

reminds me of the film Harry and the Hendersons
 

cmndstab

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#88

MF

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#89
What an amazing career. His loyalty to the club at a time when talented youngsters (eat shit Rocca!) were leaving at the first opportunity should not be underrated. I don't think Mick will have too many regrets when he hangs up the boots and despite being poor last weekend, I think there's still at least a little bit of magic left in the tank.
 

RUNVS

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#92
Somremely high praise here from a legend of the game.

Legend Lockett hails magical Mick

TONY LOCKETT has paid the ultimate tribute to Michael O'Loughlin, describing the retiring Swan as one of the greatest forwards of the modern era.

"Mick played in the forward line with me for four or five years at the Swans and he rates up there with the best players that I ever played with," the kicker of a record 1360 goals in 281 games told The Sun-Herald.

"To play 300 games tells you that he was a great contributor and he was certainly one of the best all-round players that I ever played alongside."
O'Loughlin announced on Tuesday that this season would be his last.

The mercurial goalscorer started his career at the Swans in 1995, the same year Lockett came to the club from St Kilda.

"I remember there were three players that really stood out back then: there was him, Shannon Grant and Matthew Nicks," Lockett said.

"But I think right from the get-go you could see that Mick had that something that was a little bit different. He had real good skills and he just knew where the ball was going to be.

"He had that something special that players can't learn. I think you've either got it or you don't.

"Those blokes are pretty rare, but it's more common among our indigenous fellas. They just seem to have that knack, that something different. The likes of him, [Maurice] Rioli, Michael Long, [Gavin] Wanganeen have it and Mick always had it and it carried through 15 or 16 seasons of top-grade football. He's been an unbelievable player, a true champion, not only on the field but off it, too."

In March 2008 O'Loughlin went past Lockett to second on the Swans' goal-kicking list with 465, behind only Bob Pratt's 681. The 32-year-old has since passed 500 goals and will likely pass 300 games before the season is over.

Lockett, a modest and intensely private man who once described himself as a "thug who could play a bit", admired O'Loughlin's range of abilities.

"You could see that he had the skills," he said. "You just knew he wasn't going to suffer in that department. His kicking, marking, handballing and his vision - everything like that was spot-on. His fitness was probably down a little bit.

"When he first came to the club I think even I beat him on a couple of runs - he'll like to hear that, too, don't worry.

"He probably had some work to do in that area. But true to the kid that he was then and the man he's become, he noticed the deficiency and worked his butt off to improve. The result was that he became one of the great forward-line players of the modern era.

"Right from day one he was a champion bloke on and off the field and admired greatly among opposition clubs, which is a great indicator of achievement.

"He received admiration from everyone in the football industry and he can hold his head high. He was a terrific bloke for me to have played with."

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/rf...ls-magical-mick/2009/06/27/1245961446668.html
 
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