Former #41 -- Cian “Willy” McBride

ESSENDON has won a commitment from a second Irishman, with key-position prospect Cian McBride set to be a Bomber in 2020.

McBride was a strong performer at last week’s NAB AFL Draft Combine, where countryman Oisin Gallen also tested.

The budding defender is 197cm and 90kg, a strong mark, ran sub-three seconds for the 20m sprint and placed in the top five in the running vertical jump (87cm).

He hails from the same Gaelic football club, Meath, as Hawthorn’s Conor Nash.

Richmond, Carlton and Melbourne also showed some interest in McBride.

Gallen’s best result was in the agility test, where his 8.2-second effort ranked fifth at the combine.

Essendon announced in mid-September – after many months of wooing him – that it had signed speedster Ross McQuillan, who was the standout at last year’s AFL Europe Combine.

Both McBride and McQuillan will receive two-year deals, but the Bombers can select only one of them as a Category B rookie, with the other needing to have Category A status.

Category A rookies are eligible to play senior football immediately but Category B players must be promoted to do so.

McBride and McQuillan will hope to replicate new teammate and fellow Irishman Conor McKenna, who’s become one of the Bombers’ best players.

41 Likes

Joe who?

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How do you pronounce Cian?

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How do you pronounce his first name?

Shouldn’t Cian be written as Cian ?

45 Likes

Bob

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No need for Dougal Howard now.

Enter McBride

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So do we sign Mcquillan as Cat B then immediately upgrade him to Cat A

then sign Cian as Cat B

Geez McKenna is paying dividends

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So fkn Big he needs 2 threads to be introduced to Blitz in!!!

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We allowed 2 Irish CatB’s IIRC

Edit. Article says otherwise. Forget that!

Cairn? Carn? Sharn? Kee-arn?
Nope, don’t know…

TwoB sure TwoB sure

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Keen-wa?

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That could catch on.*

.* it probably won’t**

** but now that I’ve said that, maybe it will***

*** but now that I’ve pointed that out, it probably won’t…

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We’ll be so fast all over the field I won’t be able to watch any matches live. Will have to record and replay in slow motion.

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Sounds the goods body wise.

With defenders it seems that often it can work to select someone with the frame and the attitude and they pick it up as they go.

Look at Ambrose, Alir, even Roughead for Collingwood. You can cobble together a good backline without necessarily wasting high draft picks on it.

I hope we can pull something out of the bag this summer as Hooker and Hurls and Ambrose tend to be injury prone and we need players coming through.

Good luck to the lad. Great to see our Irish connection growing. It’ll be a big St Paddies Day at Essendon this year.

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If he comes on our defence is sorted

Zerk, Francis, McBride, Fletcher

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Apparently, it’s pronounced ‘Kee-an’ (hard K sound)

Like Ian with a K in front. :+1:t2:

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No mention he might be tried as a Ruck? :thinking:

1 Like