Melbourne reveals it has spoken to banned Bomber Michael Hibberd

ESSENDON coach John Worsfold has a stern warning for Melbourne — hands off our players.

Michael Hibberd is one of the 12 banned Bombers. Picture: George Salpigtidis

ESSENDON coach John Worsfold has a stern warning for Melbourne — hands off our players.

The Demons revealed they are interested in banned Bombers defender Michael Hibberd and have already had some conversations surrounding his future with the relevant parties.

The 26-year-old — who is banned until November for his role in the club’s 2012 injections program — is contracted for next season but is yet to express whether he intends to stay at Essendon.

As far as Worsfold is concerned, Melbourne can leave Hibberd alone, cautioning the Demons against any talks with contracted Bombers.

“I think ‘Hibbo’ is contracted, so they shouldn’t be expressing any interest in contracted players,” Worsfold declared yesterday.

“I think that’s outside the laws of the game.

“He’s a contracted player and we would love him to be here at Essendon and at this stage we expect him to be here at Essendon.”

Players cannot enter into another deal while still contracted, but can speak to other clubs or have their management do so.

Demons chief executive Peter Jackson said the interest in Hibberd is genuine, but conversations have been very preliminary thus far.

“There’s a few conversations been going on, but that’s about it at the moment,” he told SEN.

“With these things, always you have conversations, they take time to work out and then you see what happens.

“In a lot of cases, the vast majority of cases, players tend not to leave their clubs. You go into these conversations and Michael’s a very good footballer, but we’ll see how that washes out in due course.

“We’re pretty happy with our young talent, but we could have a little bit more maturity down back to bolster the stocks down there. If he seriously wanted to move, I think we’d be genuinely interested in him coming.”