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FIFA World Cup 2026 posterHird factor: Watson and Lyon's reaction to Essendon coaching call
Andrew Slevison • May 26th, 2026 10:50 am
Essendon has sacked Brad Scott as senior coach in a decision that hasn’t shocked, but is certainly significant.
With the coaching vacancy at Tullamarine now there for all to see, there remains a spectre floating around the situation.
That comes in the form of club legend James Hird.
He has seemingly been continually linked with the coaching role at the Bombers since he resigned in 2015. More so recently.
Now that Scott is out of the picture, could Hird’s name be back in the fold?
Garry Lyon threw up that sensational possibility on Tuesday morning in the wake of the Scott news.
“The James Hird factor, I know people will roll their eyes on this, but I said this six, eight weeks ago - and I have no great allegiance to the Bombers,” Lyon said on SEN Breakfast.
“There is no clear air at that footy club until such time as he's given his go, and I think this paves the way for the return of Hird.
“I might be way off the mark but that’s the way I’m reading it.
“I threw up the James Hird question because that's just my observations and you could not have a more polarising view.
“I’ll leave that up to Essendon fans.
“I’ll have to ask you, would you be supportive of a return of James Hird?”
Essendon great Tim Watson, who is close to the situation, replied to that notion.
He believes there are enough people involved at the club who would want Hird back after he missed out on the job to Scott in late 2022.
Watson began: “Can I just answer the question like this? And there are a lot of Essendon people out there, a lot of Essendon people who I know who are...
“…there are different levels of support for the club, some people are financial backers of the club, some people are just people I'd know and have met over the years that are fans of the football club.
“And I get the feeling that there's a very, very strong push from a lot of people out there to get James back at Essendon coaching.
“Now I do not know whether or not he wants to put himself through that process. He put himself through the process last time. I believe that the next in line (behind Scott) was James who was second based upon that interview process.”
Watson added: “Kevin Sheedy was the only one on the board at that time that voted against Brad Scott actually being the coach of Essendon.
“He wanted James Hird to be the coach before they appointed Brad Scott.”
Lyon said further: “I’m not pumping up for Hirdy or saying he shouldn’t coach, all I’m giving you is my observations as an impartial who has access to a supporter base.
“There would be a pro-Hird camp and an anti-Hird camp and until you either get success or give Hirdy the go, that will remain a fractured footy club.”
While Watson isn't putting his preference behind any particular name, he thinks the Dons must go with a coach who is a good communicator and ready to willingly take on a rebuild, whether that's Hird or someone else entirely.
“I'll say what I said last time before they chose Brad Scott to be the coach,” Watson said.
“You run a proper coach search. That's what all the good clubs do. That's how they've arrived at really good coaches for their teams, because they've run that process.
“We ran the process last time. Brad Scott was chosen, and for whatever reason, and there'll be lots of conversation that'll come out about around why it was that they decided to make this move…. but this is what was coming out loud and clear to me.
“I went on the record and I said at point he had a problem, we had all these players that wanted to leave, there was a communication issue, where they thought that the coach wasn't communicating correctly with the players.
“Now, I'm sure he would have a different view of that, he's got a different style associated with the way that he does his coaching.
“But what we do know now, in this day and age, and there may be an outlier occasionally, but it is about relationship building.
“We know a lot of the coaches, they do a lot of work in this area about relationship building, if you're not doing that, it would appear as a coach in the modern day, then you're behind the other coaches in the business.
“I don't know whether he fixed that. I know the club acknowledged at the time that they had a problem in that area, and they moved to change a couple of positions around that. One was bringing in Dean Solomon, who's got a great reputation as being a very charismatic people type person and a relationship builder.
“But this is not about a messiah, this has to be a strategic appointment as the senior coach of the football club.
“You want somebody that has experience and understands the lay of the land, but also somebody that is happy to buy in to where the club’s strategy has been placed publicly, which is we are going though a rebuild. We are trying to accumulate as much young talent as we possibly can, as quickly as we can and build a solid foundation, but we need a builder.
“We need people who can develop.”
Listen to the discussion below:
