Back then...

Someone said to me after seeing the surfing of Michael at Kirra that they felt frustrated because the waves were so good and he was just standing there. The waves are good, classic Kirra walls and Michael sometimes just standing there clean and straight heading in a straight line at maximum speed. He surfs Kirra with confidence.

Michael is representative of a lot of good Australian kids but more purposeful and a little more stylized. He lives at Kirra and knows exactly what each wave is going to do. He doesn't fight it but seems to fit into its curves and flow with its energy. He has a beautiful feeling for the wave and the wave for him.

It was very difficult to know eactly what to do with the 25 minutes of Kira footage because there was quite a variety of good surfing of several surfers. The more I looked at it, the more interesting became Michael's waves. His timing, his choice of waves, his positioning was just so much better than anyone else's that I found myself gradually eliminating all but his rides. The end result is three minutes.

— AF