James Hird meets with Essendon Football Club about coaching job; Collingwood’s Billy Frampton gets tackle suspension overturned
Updated ,first published
In today’s AFL briefing:
- Essendon and James Hird came together over the club’s vacant coaching post.
- Collingwood’s Billy Frampton is free to play in round 19.
- Geelong coach Chris Scott is playing coy about claims he approached Zach Merrett.
Hird meets Dons
Jake Niall
Former champion and manager James Hird held his first meeting with the Essendon hierarchy on Tuesday in a bid to regain the coaching role he last held more than a decade ago.
Hird met with Essendon’s coaching panel, chaired by club chairman and former team-mate Andrew Welsh and chief executive Tim Roberts, as the Bombers begin initial interviews with candidates for the coaching role in 2027.
Essendon have said they will interview around 10 managerial candidates over a two-week period, but have not yet stated whether they would prefer a coach with assistant experience as a first-time coach or a candidate who has already held the reins of a club.
They hoped to speak to former Sydney coach John Longmire at some point. Ken Hinkley, who managed Port Adelaide for 13 seasons, said the Bombers would have to decide whether they wanted to hire Hird before accepting the position.
Both Hinkley, Longmire and former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley are candidates to become the first coaches of the Tasmania Devils to join the AFL in 2028.
Hird announced his candidacy for the Essendon job on Channel Nine in May, shortly after Brad Scott lost his job and Dean Solomon was appointed as the club’s interim coach. He confirmed on Footy Classified last week that he would be meeting with the club soon.
Corey Enright, senior assistant to Ross Lyon at St Kilda, and former Essendon player and assistant coach Hayden Skipworth, now at Collingwood, are expected to be among those speaking to the Bombers.
Bombers interested in negotiating with Fremantle assistant Jaymie Graham; Sydney assistant Mark McVeigh, the popular former Bombers player and interim coach of Greater Western Sydney, is also reported to be in the running, but the imprint has not confirmed McVeigh is on the field.
Solomon said he had not decided whether he would take over as manager at Essendon but had signed a contract for 2027 and would be willing to serve the club in other roles next year.
Other members of the Essendon panel tasked with choosing the club’s next coach are director Ted Richards, who played for the Bombers and won the premiership in Sydney, fellow board member Anthony D Pietro and community and culture manager Caroline Monzon.
Frampton avoids ban
Scott Spits
Collingwood’s effort to downplay the seriousness of Billy Frampton’s tackle on North Melbourne young forward Matt Whitlock – a tackle which prevented the Roo from scoring – paid off after Frampton was released to face Carlton in a tight match on Saturday night.
Rather than face a one-match ban for his rough conduct, Frampton, a vital player in the Pies’ defense after captain Darcy Moore was sidelined for the season, convinced the tribunal that he had taken sufficient care in bringing Whitlock to the ground and readjusted the force of the blow.
In his statement, Frampton argued that he had no choice but to jump forward to stop Whitlock, given that his opponent was so close to goal.
“The positioning of her arms along her body gave me no choice but to wrap her up this way,” Frampton said.
After more than an hour of deliberations, the court found Frampton guilty of rude conduct but said the impact should be reclassified as medium to low. So Magpie will be fined instead of suspended.
“The footage shows that although Mr. Whitlock’s head hit the ground, his knee and shoulder contacted the ground first, reducing the force,” said presiding judge Renee Embom of KC.
“It’s about the power he wields. [Whitlock’s] impact of the head on the ground, as well as the potential for injury.
“We looked at the footage and it does not appear that Mr. Whitlock was in any discomfort following the intervention. We know from the medical report that Mr. Whitlock did not suffer any injuries.”
Collingwood took every precaution to support its player and benefited from multiple examples of rude behavior that were also thought to have low impact.
“There was no twisting, sticking or crashing in any way,” Collingwood attorney Nicholas Baum said.
“A sensible player would not have tried to release his arm before Frampton did.”
During court questioning, Frampton said he thought his tackle would result in a call to hold the ball.
“I don’t think I could move my hands there (around her hips) because of the position of her arms,” he said.
“I thought it was a pretty clear decision to go for a fight.
“I had to lunge at him to get there fast enough and stop him from scoring.”
The Collingwood defender said he had no choice but to tackle Whitlock, which restricted both of his arms.
“The way his arms were positioned across his body, it gave me no choice but to wrap him up like that and, I guess, put the ball on his boot and stop him from trying to score,” Frampton said.
Earlier Collingwood coach Craig McRae said he had no idea what the outcome of Frampton’s trial would be after seeing Collingwood’s Jack Crisp cleared by the MRO for his concussion-inducing tackle on North’s Tom Blamires.
“You know there is a bit of gray in our game and there is some uncertainty,” McRae told Fox Footy.
“Jack Crisp is tackling a guy who got a concussion and survived, and then this happened, so I don’t really know what’s going to happen there.”
Scott was coy about Merrett approach claim
Peter Ryan
Geelong coach Chris Scott says the Cats have always been interested in bringing in great players but refused to say whether he had contacted Essendon midfielder Zach Merrett about a potential swap.
The Cats are pursuing the Giants’ unrestricted free agent Toby Greene, who has yet to re-sign, and are one of the few clubs to have made it clear to restricted free agent Zak Butters that he could join them if he decides to leave Port Adelaide.
The Cats have been monitoring Merrett for many years but Seven reported on Monday night that Scott had made direct contact with the 30-year-old, who was trying to join Hawthorn in the last trade window. To make sure you consider cats as an option.
During Tuesday’s media conference, Scott was asked about his response to the report.
“There is no answer. There is [the club’s] Private and confidential conversations, thoughts and assumptions… I apologize to Marcus Bontempelli, but if anyone comes along and says there’s a one in a million chance of playing with the Cats, I’ll look into it,” Scott said.
“So in that context, even if it’s true to say, ‘Hey, it looks like the Cats are considering a really good player from another team,’ I don’t think that’s very interesting. That’s your job as part of your job.”
Scott said the team would not dwell on the negatives of consecutive defeats, but would be encouraged by the fact that they were able to dominate in some matches against quality opponents.
He said the main problem was their inability to take advantage of periods of control on the scoreboard and the lack of cohesion in the forward line was an obvious factor.
“The biggest problem, at least in our view, and of course opposition scores are always a problem, is that we haven’t been able to put our foot down when we were in control of the games,” Scott said.
Geelong have beaten all the top six teams except Hawthorn this season, but defeat to St Kilda would see Scott lose four in a row for the second time in his illustrious coaching career.
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Jake Niall is a Walkley-winning sports journalist and The Age’s chief AFL writer.Connect with: X or email.
