Melbourne defender Michael Hibberd has revealed how his family initially held out hope that his elder brother Geoff would emerge after he went missing at sea.
Geoff Hibberd and his friend, Jason De Silva, went missing in April after leaving Flinders Pier before 6am on a fishing trip.
Speaking to The Age, Hibberd recalled the phone call from his sister Carly when he was notified that Geoff and Jason were missing.
"She [Carly] said the car's still there, but no boat. No one's heard from them. Their phones are off. I was like, straight away I was, 'Shit, this is no good'," he said.
"Everyone's like, 'Yeah no, he's probably...' With my brother, he has a way of getting out of any situation. He's a character. Anyway, everyone's like, 'It's Geoff, he'll come back' kind of thing.
"I've been out in those waters before fishing, especially when it's rough and you know, be out there in a tinny that was only two metres big, so yeah I was pretty real about it straight away, barely got a wink of sleep and then went straight down to the pier the next day."
The boat was discovered at Pyramid Rocks in Phillip Island smashed up against the rocks days following the disappearance, but the bodies of both men are yet to be found.
While his older brother has not officially been declared dead, Hibberd was quick to accept that he had died.
"I was pretty realistic about the whole thing early and now I think everyone's dealt with that," he said.
"They understand, they understand he's not out there swimming still. Like it's, sad as it is, it's not the case.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBHN2plj0Fb/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_linkAdding to the Hibberd family's pain is the inability to hold a funeral to celebrate Geoff's life due to the COVID-19 lockdown laws.
"That's been something that's been pretty tough," he admitted.
"We're still, there's a part of us that wants to just wait until COVID settles down, we can have a proper celebration.
"And, you know, you kind of want that, the coroner to go, 'Yeah, he's been pronounced dead'. We don't know how long that will be. We'll deal with that when they do. They may not say that for a long time. It could be another year or two years, who knows?
"But if COVID stuff settles down and we can actually have a proper gathering of over 100 people, we'll just do it off our own bat."
from WWOS https://wwos.nine.com.au/afl/michael-hibberd-opens-up-on-painful-loss-of-brother-at-sea-melbourne-demons/bf22fe45-a109-49e2-b159-401a62a44ade
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