Why Hird isn’t ‘viable’ for Essendon job

KANE Cornes doesn’t believe James Hird should get anywhere near the Essendon coaching job, but not necessarily because of the supplement’s saga.

Hird served as a part time assistant coach at GWS in 2022, but otherwise has not been inside an AFL club since departing the Bombers in 2015.

Cornes says the 49-year-old doesn’t have enough recent experience to jump straight into a head coaching role.

“I’m not sure the selection panel did the best thing for him by allowing him to put his hand up for the job when clearly – I can’t see a possible way Josh Mahoney, Jordan Lewis and Robert Walls and the others would be accepting of James Hird to coach Essendon again,” Cornes told SEN’s Whateley.

“There would be candidates far more suited to the job than James Hird. The other candidates have worked on their coaching.

“The big one for me isn’t necessarily the history of it, albeit that is the circus part of it, it’s more the nuts and bolts of what it takes to coach a footy team and how quickly the game has moved strategically, the management side of things, the new demographic of players coming through, managing the football club.

“To be out of it for that long, I know some would say he dipped his toe back into the water this year, but I would think the model for James Hird had to be the Michael Voss model.

“You coach, it doesn’t end the way you would have hoped, you go to another club, you run the midfield and the leadership department, then you manage the coaches as a director and are across all facets.

“James Hird hasn’t done the work, to put it bluntly.

“He hasn’t done the work to be a viable candidate for the Essendon coaching job. That’s nothing personal, that’s just the reality of it.

“I’m surprised they accepted a sit down with him and I don’t think it’s going to go too far.”

Hird coached the Bombers between 2011 and 2013, before returning in 2015 following his one-year ban.

– BY NIC NEGREPONTIS/ SEN