Tony Buhagiar a nuggety rover from SA. Tough, skillful no nonsense type of player who could pinch a goal when resting up forward.
I’ll never forget the banner the day we were playing NM at Windy Hill that read “Budgie wants a Kracker” . Tony nickname was budgie and the Kracker brothers were playing for North!
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He was from WA. Played 4 seasons from memory and was left out of the 1984 finals from Daisy and Ezard.
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Correct. Played for the Moss St fairies until his life changed for the better in 1981.
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Watched the 1993 GF at his pub in Bicton on Canning Hwy, The Leopold Hotel.
Was full to the brim with Bomber supporters and a few hapless Fark Carlton supporters that day.
It was the unofficial Bombers Supporters go to pub in Perth at the time and where the Perth Bombers Supporters club had their first meeting with Simon Madden as guest speaker.
Atmosphere was electric, almost felt like we were at the 'G.
The Budgie was a great footballer with us and in 1985 at Footscray in one of their very rare finals appearances around that time.
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He was a terrific player. Felt he was hard done by to get squeezed out of the Essendon line-up just as things were heating up. I couldn’t tell you right now who should have been left out so Buhagiar could have played in '84 but given time I could mount an argument.
Well, sort of. On his day he was unstoppable. Problem was his days were few, far between and generally against the poorer sides. Including us one day as I recall.
Really obscure but Lachlan Ross, only played two games and was at the club for one year, but he was an electric player in the SANFL who carved in that league before coming across, he was super quick, Amazingly skilled, just had personal problems and quit after year. I think he spent time in the clink not long after he left.
And of course, Adam Cooney, because he is a freaking legend
That’s exactly right. At the time I thought he should have been picked ahead of Ezard, but I didn’t realise then how good Ezard really was.
Buhagiar was one of those players who always looked slow but still managed to come out of every game with a stack of kicks. Which hit their targets.
No post on this site has ever caused me as much cognitive dissonance as this one…
Ezzard is the one although he could have played ahead of N Clarke also. Clarke and Buhagiar played the same number of games for the year but Buhagiar had a superior possession average and scored more goals than Clarke. Perhaps the administration thought that Clarke could handle the rigors of a GF against Hawthorn better than Buhagiar could.
Didn’t Clarke play the year in the back pocket? Might’ve battled to score many goals from there.
Ezard was the only one who could have made way for Budgie. Tight call but I think they were right in going with Ezard.
Mark Eustice. Too good for the 2nds. Not good enough for VFL
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I agree with Swooper. Clarke was a back pocket and Buhagiar was a rover. Different players doing different jobs. You wouldn’t play Clarke as a rover and you wouldn’t play Buhagiar as a back pocket.
John Barnes for me. Super talent but obviously didn’t have the level of professionalism required at that time. Needed the wake up call of getting sacked to get the best out of himself. The trade netted us Sean Denham who was a great contributor to the 1993 flag but was stoked to see Barnes come back and get the flag in 2000 after all the near misses at the Cats.
From another club, I’d say Adrian McAdam. Was absolutely dynamite for a season at North, I think it was around 1993-94 but nothing after that. Was a dead set freak.
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But Clarke lined up as a follower in the GF.
Laverde and Langford.
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Was he the one who taunted Brett Heady about his ears at the end of a fearful flogging we copped from WCE in the mid-90s? Childish I know, but it amused me at the time… Wore 33 IIRC…
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Defender Doug Tassell (28 December 1945 – 20 June 1970) played nine games in 1969 and 11 in 1970. He would have played many more games in a long career but he
died in a car accident.
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…W.T.F