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Michael was a very promising junior and won the 1991 All-Ireland
under-16 championship. However when he turned professional in
1992, he took several seasons to establish himself.
In his first season he only got past the provisional qualifying
in one event and ended with a very modest ranking of 262.
Slightly better results in 1993/94 took him up to 171 but it was
not until the following season that he reached the last 64 of an
event for the first time. He did so three time that season and
went on to the last 32 in the Welsh open moving into the top 100
in the rankings. 1995/96 saw him get past the qualifying rounds
only once but he still climbed to 71 and a year later he rose to
56 having reached his first ranking quarter-final in the British
Open and only just failed to make it to the Crucible at the
final hurdle.
The next two campaigns saw a mixture of first round exits and a
few appearances in the last 64. He did make the Republic of
Ireland team for the 1999 Nations Cup and his final black
victory over Joe Swail of Northern Ireland gave his team their
only win and brought his name to the attention of the public. On
the back of his he was given a wild card entry to the Benson &
Hedges Irish Masters but he lost in the first round. He reached
the last 32 and the televised stage of the British Open but
again failed in the final qualifying round for the world
championships.
1999/2000 was a better one for Michael and he reached the last
32 in two events but, for a third time, just missed a place at
the Crucible. His ranking had moved up to 46 and in the next
season, 2000/01, he finally made it to the last 16 of a ranking
event, not once but four times. He also played a major role in
the Republic’s Nation’s Cup team and helped them get all the way
to the final where they lost to the all-star Scottish trio. He
finally made it to the Crucible as well but upset a lot of
people as he beat their favourite, Jimmy White, in the last
qualifier. He quipped himself well, beating former champion,
John Parrott, in the first round before his fellow Dubliner, Ken
Doherty, ended his hopes in the second. This success took him
into the top 32 at number 28.
He did not really capitalise on his position in 2001/02 losing
his opening match in five of the nine ranking events. There were
two last 16 finishes though and a second successive visit to the
Crucible where he went out in the first round to the eventual
winner, Peter Ebdon. He managed to improve his ranking to 24 but
the 2002/3 campaign was worse and he only won two matches in the
eight ranking events. After two seasons in the top 32 he dropped
back to 37th.
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