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Full Noise by SN
Watson: “No validity” in reported Essendon coaching push
SEN • March 18th, 2026 10:18 am
Essendon legend Tim Watson says there is “no validity” to suggestions that there is a background push for Dean Solomon to replace Brad Scott as senior coach at the Bombers.
Caroline Wilson has indicated that premiership coach Kevin Sheedy and some of the club’s coterie groups could perhaps be agitating for a major change behind the scenes.
“Kevin Sheedy, we know he’s a big fan of Dean Solomon,” Wilson said on Channel 7’s Agenda Setters. “He coached him to premierships.
“The conversation around the Essendonians etcetera, the old boys, is that maybe Dean Solomon would make a great coach of the Essendon Football Club and he and James Hird would work well together.
“You just look at Brad Scott and you have to say at the moment the cards are stacked against him.”
In response to that suggestion, former club captain Watson insists he has not heard any of that talk.
Watson acknowledges that Sheedy wanted James Hird over Brad Scott in 2022, but isn’t sure he’s trying to stir up a significant coaching change right now.
He said on SEN Breakfast: “Are we moving into an area of reporting where we’re quoting a coterie group at a football club?
“Caro said the word around the Essendonians… there’s a lot of different stuff that comes out from coteries at football clubs. Most of it is just chatter and conversation around the team.
“I don’t know whether Kevin Sheedy is out there talking about Dean Solomon being the next coach of the Essendon Football Club. I haven’t heard him say that, so I don’t know whether that’s true or not.
“If it was then I think he’s got to temper where he says whatever it is that he’s saying about whoever it is that he wants to be the next coach. Because he has a really powerful voice at the Essendon Football Club.
“Our club has been destabilised over a long period of time, it has never been able to get itself on sure footing in any way. I think that he needs to understand that this would not be helping the situation.
“He can say whatever he likes but if you’re having conversations and you’re a powerful figure like Kevin Sheedy then you need to probably understand who you’re talking to, where you’re saying these things, and the destabilising effect that it might have on a football club.
“There’s a time and a place for everything. You can have your private conversations and do your power building behind the scenes, and I don’t know at administration level now if he has that power.
“He wanted James Hird to be coach when Brad Scott was hired. He got rolled on that which was something he disagreed with vehemently at the time and he’s been public about that.”
Watson again made it clear that he has heard nothing regarding a push for current assistant coach Solomon to push Scott out.
“I’m making a statement around what I’m hearing and I’m saying that from what I understand there is no validity, there is no evidence that at this point in time there is anybody trying to push Brad Scott out of the football club and put Dean Solomon in there,” he added.
The Dons were belted by Hawthorn by 62 points in Round 1. They next meet Port Adelaide at the Adelaide Oval on Sunday.
