Essendon great Kevin Sheedy is confident James Hird would not waste a third chance to coach the club, as the Bombers face calls to clarify whether Hird has all but won the top job.
Four-time premiership coach Sheedy, who as a Bombers’ board director four years ago broke ranks and publicly confirmed he backed Hird when Brad Scott won the job, said Hird was a man who could galvanise the struggling Bombers.
They are on the hunt for a new coach after sacking Scott on Tuesday.
Sheedy maintains to “to coach Essendon, you’ve got to love Essendon”, and insists Hird, a two-time premiership player and former captain, still does despite his tumultuous departure in 2015 amid the supplements saga.
“I think he does, and I think he’ll do anything to make sure he gets this right this time around, if he ever gets it,” Sheedy said on SEN on Wednesday.
“But he may not get it, there might be people at Essendon that may never want him to coach Essendon. I don’t know who they are, but I think, in the end, the people and the fans most likely do.
“I don’t know what the sort of feeling is around town, but I would think that if he got a chance, he wouldn’t muck this one up. We all know how long and how hard it is to find a coach who can win you a premiership because I think Melbourne went through about 13 or 14 after Norm Smith, and Richmond went through about six or seven in 10 years.”
As Bombers’ president Andrew Welsh and chief executive Tim Roberts begin to form a coaching sub-committee, former Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley – a prospective candidate – said he would not express potential interest until the Bombers clarified their position on Hird.
Hinkley said it appeared to be Hird’s job to lose, and other candidates would not be truly considered.
“It looks like, it’s somewhat James Hird’s job … they need to clear the air with that first,” he said.
“I don’t think anyone would be prepared to be in the race too deep, unless in some ways you are involved in Essendon with their history. That [clarification] would be important to me.
“It looks like James Hird and then someone else. They have every right to do that, and that’s their call.”
Hird, 53, has declared he wants the job, but has called on the Bombers to run a professional process.
“The most important thing for me as an Essendon person, and what I want to see that football club do … is for them to go through the most exhaustive process possible to find the best person to be the coach of the Essendon Football Club,” Hird said on Footy Classified, where he is a regular panelist.
“If the club came to me [and said]: ‘Would you be part of that process?’, I would definitely say yes. That is something I would love to be part of – pit my wares against the other coaches [to find] the best man for the job.”
Hird’s initial stint as coach began in 2011 when fellow club great Mark Thompson was his senior assistant, but the supplements scandal, which broke in 2013, all but destroyed his tenure. He was suspended by the AFL in 2014 but returned for the 2015 campaign, only to part ways with the club that season. Overall, he won 41 of 85 games as coach.
The fall-out of that period also led to mental health issues, but he returned to coaching as an assistant with Greater Western Sydney in 2022, and is now director of coaching for VFL club, Port Melbourne. He is also a panelist on Nine’s Footy Classified.
Sheedy, who stepped down from the board in 2024, said it did not matter that Hird had not been a senior coach for more than a decade.
“Well, I’d never coached before I got the job at Essendon,” Sheedy said.
“It all depends on what you want to do and how you think about things. I never went for an interview with the AFL to get the Giants job. They just said, ‘you’re doing it, go and talk to your wife and see if you can convince her to go up to Sydney’. I didn’t have one interview.
“So interviews can be important, but they’re not the be-all, end-all. And I think that whether you haven’t coached for five or eight years or whatever, you keep your toe in the water down in Port Melbourne.
“His position would be to get the best people around him, obviously. You’ve got to find the best people to help you.”
Sheedy said he would help Hird, should the 253-game great return to the club.
“Once he gets the job, I would help him. If he got it,” he said.
Sheedy said he fears the club regressed under Scott, with one win from the past 24 matches causing attendances and overall support to dip. But he thinks Hird would stabilise the club.
“You’d probably say that it would keep the place a bit calmer than where it’s been, I would think,” Sheedy said of a Hird appointment.
“In many ways we’re three years down the track, and we haven’t gone any further – probably gone worse.
“Without pushing Hird’s barrow, if he wants to go and coach, I would vote for him in my membership vote, simple as that, if you get a chance. It’s up to the board and the president to make that decision. Andrew Welsh is the president, and he lives and dies by his own decisions.”
Jon Pierik is a sports journalist at The Age. He covers AFL and has won awards for his cricket and basketball writing.Connect via X or email.
