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SELECT 👉 Bay Oval commentary
“Money where his mouth is”: Why Cornes respects Solomon move
Andrew Slevison • October 24th, 2025 9:53 am
Essendon has made the slightly unusual move of having a board member shift into the football department.
Premiership player Dean Solomon was on Thursday confirmed as an assistant coach having stepped down from his role as director on the board.
Solomon will slip into Brad Scott’s coaching staff to replace Daniel Giansiracusa who has left the Bombers for Hawthorn.
The 45-year-old has been quite vocal in attempting to steady the ship from his previous board position and will now take a more hands-on approach to continue leading the Dons forward.
While Kane Cornes does admit it is a little out of the ordinary, he respects the former Fremantle, Gold Coast and GWS assistant for backing up his words with action.
“The interesting one is that Dean Solomon is leaving Essendon’s board to become an assistant coach, which is slightly unusual,” Cornes said on SEN Breakfast.
“Clubs are looking at the assistant coaching depth, which I don’t think there’s a whole lot out there at the moment.
“He was a highly-regarded assistant coach, he was an interim head coach at Gold Coast for a period of time, he went to GWS to help out Mark McVeigh who took over from Leon Cameron (in 2022).
“Now he’s going to help out. He’s been strong behind the scenes in trying to help rebuild the culture of the Essendon Football Club and just quieten the noise from those outside and who are not involved anymore. It’s such a frustration for those who are trying to run the footy club and there’s all these people trying to get their noise into places they’re not warranted.
“He’s going to step up and put his money where his mouth is, and try to fix the club hands-on.”
Solomon, who played in the club’s 2000 flag, will oversee the backline and team defence under Scott who admits he has wanted him as a coach at the club for some time.
“I’ve tried to recruit 'Solly' in the past as an Assistant Coach and I’m rapt that we’ve been able to secure his services this time around. We have been working on this plan for several weeks now, and it's great that he has been able to jump out of his Board role and back into our Football Department,” Scott said in a club statement.
“He is vastly experienced as a football person who will add a layer of strength to our coaching group and be a key pillar in helping to develop and grow our list.
“Having coached and played against him, we have aligned philosophy on how the game should be played, and his addition to our group makes us stronger, which we are all excited about.”
Solomon will officially start in his coaching role next week once he hands over his board obligations.
