When asked if he intended to speak to Hird<\/a>, Essendon president Andrew Welsh told reporters: \u201cWe\u2019re not ruling anyone in or anyone out of this.\u201d<\/p>\nCODE Sports and Fox Footy reporter Jon Ralph said a Hird-Essendon return \u201cwould be the greatest coaching comeback that we\u2019ve seen and I\u2019m completely here for the drama of it\u201d.<\/p>\n
But Ralph added the thought of Hird returning to Essendon \u201cinvokes such strong reactions\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are very senior people who believe he desperately wants to coach the club, they are very much pushing him, he very much is keen to coach the club and there are individuals who\u2019ve made clear \u2018if we were to move Brad Scott on, we\u2019d pay some of that as long as James Hird is the man\u2019,\u201d Ralph told Midweek Tackle.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yet I spoke to one senior Dons administrator of recent past today, who said: \u2018We\u2019d be a laughing stock if we brought him back \u2026 we\u2019d have 20,000 fans who\u2019d cancel their memberships by next March. He cost us 10 years and $20 million and he cost Jobe (Watson) his Brownlow.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Hird: “I would definitely say yes” | 02:43<\/p>\n
One of Essendon\u2019s greatest ever players, Hird coached Essendon for nearly four full seasons before his sacking late in 2015 when his Bombers were 5-14. He didn\u2019t coach the club in 2014 as he served a 12-month AFL-imposed ban for his role in the controversial Essendon supplements program.<\/p>\n
Hird is now 11 years removed from his Essendon resignation, having since briefly served at the Giants in 2022, and taken up a director of coaching role at Port Melbourne. There was a push for Hird to take over from Ben Rutten \u2013 Sheedy certainly wanted his former superstar back in the chair \u2013 before Scott landed the gig in September 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing I can\u2019t cop is to say: \u2018Essendon needs to scratch the itch. Until we hire this bloke and maybe fire him, we can\u2019t move on.\u2019 If they can get him into a coaching set-up where he runs a full process and he wins, sobeit. But otherwise, you\u2019re not handing him the gig,\u201d Ralph said.<\/p>\n
Of the possibility of Hird coaching Essendon again, McFarlane said he could \u201csee it happening, but it shouldn\u2019t be happening\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cStrangely enough, you can see it happening, absolutely,\u201d McFarlane said of the possibility of a Hird return. \u201cShould it happen? No, not from my perspective \u2013 and it\u2019s got nothing to do from the supplements saga.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going back 11 years since he was a senior coach of an (AFL) football club. That\u2019s a long time. Footy moves at a heartbeat, at a matter of weeks and months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking at a Melbourne Cup field at the moment in terms of experienced coaches who have won premierships, but also a great list of assistant coaches.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an open AFL coaching landscape at the moment, considering there are vacancies not just as Essendon, but also Carlton and Tasmania.<\/p>\n
Experienced coaches like John Longmire, Ken Hinkley, Adam Simpson and Nathan Buckley remain available, while there\u2019s a long list of highly-credentialed assistant coaches keen for their first senior gig.<\/p>\n
Bombers sack Brad Scott! | 08:34<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if you run the process there (at Essendon), all of a sudden he (Hird) is up against a Longmire or a Hinkley and all they\u2019ve done in the last 10 years,\u201d Ralph said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s astonishing and preposterous to think he would get that gig, that\u2019s not what a serious club does.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if those blokes (Hinkley and Longmire) move out and if it\u2019s against a first-timer, well that\u2019s possible for a club that I think wants to go for a senior candidate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can make the case he would\u2019ve been a coaching great. He was only there for four years at Essendon \u2026 so many people say \u2018he could\u2019ve been exceptional\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn his first season, he takes the club to finals. They\u2019re 11-4 in the infamous year and then injuries hit. The next year, they\u2019re 14-7, they\u2019re kicked out of the finals and takes a year off and comes back. In that year, everyone says \u2018he\u2019s no good\u2019 and he got sacked by the end of the season. Well of course they got cleared by ASADA in the days before the Round 1 opener and then six rounds in when they\u2019re 3-3, WADA appeals through CAS and the arse falls out of the season. There\u2019s no way he could ever compete.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not saying he should be the coach, but the people out there that would say \u2018James Hird must be our coach\u2019, they\u2019re not saying it because it\u2019s \u2018James Hird the saviour\u2019, they\u2019re saying they have seen how great this bloke is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ralph said Hird \u201cran a pretty distant third\u201d in 2022 when Scott was given the Essendon gig.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are other people out there who were on the panel, who told Essendon players at the time at a Brownlow Medal function: \u2018He\u2019s the best candidate but he won\u2019t get it because of James and all the baggage there.\u2019 Now those players were really upset by that, I think they even spoke to some of those senior leaders,\u201d Ralph said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a great misnomer though: The only reason he wanted this gig was for career restoration, so he could restore a tarnished reputation \u2013 and I think that\u2019s what some of those people on that panel thought. What he has told other people is: \u2018The reason I wanted to be at Essendon is because it\u2019s a truly great club and I have passion for it \u2013 and that shouldn\u2019t be seen to be a disadvantage for me.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019d be an extraordinary comeback, but he got sacked in 2015, seven years later he applied again, he wants to do it again, he believes that this club is great and he can see where it could be again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing I think he should do is apply for this gig and, if it is that he misses it, he says: \u2018That\u2019s it, I put my hand up, I won\u2019t apply again because it is distracting the spectre of me forever haunting this football club\u2019 \u2026 Everyone like Brad Scott would say it was a complete distraction that the spectre of James Hird was hanging over his head.<\/p>\n
McFarlane added: \u201cIt needs a full stop, this situation. We didn\u2019t get that at the end of 2022 and it certainly needs it now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The \u201cgroundswell is underway\u201d for a James Hird return to Essendon, according to CODE Sports reporter Glenn McFarlane,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7386,18687,18679,23,133,6637,4534,18681,5010,3839,18685,18683,18680,18678,4357,18675,580,18688,368,2127,18676,356,18671,18673,18677,6534,407,4176,18674,260,2105,120,18682,18686,18684,18672,5247,4852,68],"class_list":["post-19183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-adam-simpson","tag-andrew-welsh","tag-assistant-coaches","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-ben-waterworth","tag-brad-scott","tag-career-restoration","tag-carlton-blues","tag-club-legend","tag-coaching-comeback","tag-coaching-landscape","tag-coaching-role","tag-coaching-stint","tag-essendon-bombers","tag-experienced-coaches","tag-footy-club","tag-footy-moves","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-giants","tag-glenn-mcfarlane","tag-head-coach","tag-highly-credentialed-assistant-coaches","tag-injuries-hit","tag-james-hird","tag-john-longmire","tag-jon-ralph","tag-ken-hinkley","tag-kevin-sheedy","tag-melbourne","tag-michael-willson","tag-oceania","tag-sacked-coach","tag-senior-gig","tag-supplements-program","tag-supplements-saga","tag-tasmania","tag-tim-roberts","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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