Interim Essendon coach Dean Solomon has rejected suggestions that he was informing the board about the performance of Brad Scott as senior coach this year while working alongside him as an assistant.
Amid reports his relationship was Scott was fractured, Solomon, who is friends and a former teammate of club president Andrew Welsh, said he had not had any discussions with the president about Scott’s performance as coach during this season. He said his working relationship with Scott, who was sacked on Monday after the Bombers had won just one game in 2026, was strong.
“Brad and I got on really, really well. I respect Brad. I respected Brad as a player and as a coach and what he has been able to achieve,” Solomon said.
“There was not one part of me who felt there was any bitterness between us.”
When asked directly on Thursday whether he had discussed Scott’s performance as coach this year with Welsh, Solomon, who had returned to Essendon to sit on the board before being installed as an assistant coach in December, was adamant: “Not at all, not one bit.”
He said the only time he had discussions about Scott and the club’s direction with anyone at board level was last year when he was on the board.
Solomon said his involvement with board members about the coach and the club’s strategy ended when he stepped off the board to become assistant coach.
“Once I agreed to be assistant coach all conversations around the bigger picture were shut down,” Solomon said. “I said that to the board and the board said that to me.”
Scott told Seven’s Agenda Setters that he had a good relationship with Solomon.
With momentum building for James Hird to return as senior coach after he declared his interest on Tuesday night, Solomon, who played in the 2000 premiership alongside Hird, said he would not personally consider being a candidate for the senior coaching position while interim coach.
He was pleased Hird felt he was in the position to feel ready to coach again but said the board would form a view on that, and Solomon would not be involved in those discussions.
“I love the fact that [Hird] feels he’s in a position to want to coach again. On a personal level I’m glad that’s the case,” Solomon said. “Whether that happens or not, I’m not part of any of those discussions.”
With a number of coaching candidates concerned about putting their hand up for the job in the spectre of Hird’s interest, Solomon was adamant that the new coach did not have to be a Bombers insider.
“You don’t have to be an Essendon person to coach Essendon,” Solomon said, adding there have been plenty of examples of former players returning to their club or new coaches who had not played at the club being successful as a senior AFL coach.
The 46-year-old Solomon, who played 158 matches for Essendon and 51 games at Fremantle before being an assistant with Gold Coast, was asked whether he would be a candidate to replace Scott.
“I won’t even to consider that. I won’t consider that while I am doing this job. I think it is the wrong thing to do for me to entertain [that],” Solomon said.
“I’ve got to knuckle down … my heart is with the players and the staff. If I am thinking about something else, that’s potentially about me, it’s just the wrong thing.”
More to come
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