Hird meets with Dons; Frampton free to play; Scott plays coy on Merrett

Former champion and coach James Hird had his first meeting with Essendon hierarchy on Tuesday in his bid to regain the coaching job he last held more than a decade ago.

Hird met with Essendon’s coaching panel, headed by club president and his former teammate Andrew Welsh and the chief executive Tim Roberts as the Bombers begin their initial conversations with candidates for the coaching position in 2027.

Essendon have said they will talk to about 10 prospective coaches over a two-week period, but they are yet to indicate if they have a preference for a first-time coach with experience as an assistant or for a candidate who has already held the reins of a club.

They had hoped to speak to former Sydney coach John Longmire at some stage.

Ken Hinkley, who led Port Adelaide for 13 seasons, said the Bombers had to work out whether they wanted to hire Hird or not before he would entertain the position.

Both Hinkley, Longmire and former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley are candidates to be the inaugural coach of the Tasmania Devils, who will enter the AFL in 2028.

Hird declared his candidacy for the Essendon post on Channel Nine in May shortly after Brad Scott lost the job and Dean Solomon was appointed the club’s interim coach. Last week he confirmed on Footy Classified that he would soon be meeting with the club.

Corey Enright a senior assistant under Ross Lyon at St Kilda is expected to be one of those who speaks to the Bombers, as is Hayden Skipworth, an ex-Essendon player and assistant coach, now working at Collingwood.

The Bombers are interested in speaking to Fremantle assistant Jaymie Graham, while Sydney assistant Mark McVeigh, a popular ex-Bombers player and interim coach for Greater Western Sydney, is reportedly a candidate, though this masthead has not confirmed that McVeigh is in the field.

Solomon has said he has not decided whether he will seek the coaching role at Essendon, but was contracted for 2027 and would be willing to serve the club in other roles next year.

Other members on Essendon’s panel charged with selecting the club’s next coach are director Ted Richards, who played with the Bombers and won a premiership at Sydney, his fellow board member Anthony D Pietro and people and culture executive Caroline Monzon.

Frampton gets off ban

Scott Spits

Collingwood’s effort to downgrade the seriousness of Billy Frampton’s tackle on young North Melbourne forward Matt Whitlock – a tackle which stopped the Roo from booting a goal – has paid off after Frampton was freed to take on Carlton in a crunch match on Saturday night.

Instead of copping a one-match ban for rough conduct, Frampton, a vital player for the Pies in defence with skipper Darcy Moore out for the season, convinced the tribunal he showed sufficient care with the way he brought Whitlock to the ground and had the force of the impact regraded.

In his evidence, Frampton argued he had no other option than diving forward to stop Whitlock, given his opponent was so close to goal.

“(With) how his arms were positioned along his body, it didn’t give me much of a choice than to wrap him up that way,” Frampton said.

After more than an hour of deliberations, the tribunal found Frampton guilty of rough conduct but said the impact should be reclassified from medium to low. Thus the Magpie will be fined instead of suspended.

“The vision shows that while Mr Whitlock’s head did hit the ground, force was reduced by his knee and shoulder first making contact with the ground,” said tribunal chair Renee Embom, KC.

“This is relevant to the force with which his [Whitlock’s] head hit the ground and also the potential for injury.

“We’ve looked at the vision and Mr Whitlock does not appear to be in any discomfort following the tackle. We know from the medical report that Mr Whitlock didn’t suffer an injury.”

Collingwood went to every measure to back their player, drawing on multiple comparable cases of rough conduct in which the impact was also considered low.

“There was no rotation, slinging or driving into the ground at all,” said Collingwood’s advocate Nicholas Baum.

“A reasonable player would not have attempted to release an arm any earlier than Frampton did.”

Under tribunal questioning, Frampton said he thought his tackle would result in a holding the ball call.

“I don’t think I could have maneuvered my hands in there (around his hips) with how his arms were positioned,” he said.

“I thought it was a pretty clear decision to go for a tackle.

“To get there quick enough, to stop him kicking a goal, I had to lunge towards him.”

The Collingwood defender said he had no choice but to tackle Whitlock in a way that restricted both his arms.

“The way his arms were positioned along his body didn’t give me much choice but to wrap him up that way, and try to impede him from trying to I guess drop the ball on his boot and kick the goal,” Frampton said.

Earlier, Collingwood coach Craig McRae said he had no idea what the outcome of Frampton’s hearing would be after seeing Collingwood’s Jack Crisp cleared by the MRO over the tackle that left North’s Tom Blamires concussed.

“There’s, you know, some grey in our game, and there’s some uncertainty,” McRae told Fox Footy.

“Jack Crisp tackles a guy (who) gets concussed and he gets off, and then this one happened, so I really don’t know what’s going to transpire there.”

Scott coy on alleged Merrett approach

Peter Ryan

Geelong coach Chris Scott says the Cats are always interested in securing great players but has refused to say whether he has made contact with Essendon midfielder Zach Merrett about a potential trade.

The Cats are pursuing the Giants’ unrestricted free agent Toby Greene, who is yet to re-sign, and are one of several clubs that have made it clear to restricted free agent Zak Butters he would be welcome to join them if he decided to leave Port Adelaide.

The Cats have monitored Merrett for many years, but Seven reported on Monday night that Scott had made direct contact with the 30-year-old, who tried to join Hawthorn last trade period to ensure he considered the Cats as an option.

Scott was asked for his response to the report at his media conference on Tuesday.

“There is no response. There are [the club’s] private and confidential conversations and thoughts and hypotheticals … I apologise to Marcus Bontempelli but if someone said there is a one in a million chance he might come and play with the Cats, I would explore it,” Scott said.

“So in that context I don’t think it is very interesting even if it is true to say, ‘hey, apparently the Cats are considering a really good player from another team’. That is incumbent on you as part of your job.”

Scott said the team would not dwell on the negatives from their run of losses but take heart from the fact they were able to dominate patches of games against quality opposition.

He said the main issue was their inability to take advantage of periods of control on the scoreboard with the lack of cohesion in the forward line an obvious factor.

“The biggest issue, in our opinion at least – obviously the opposition scoring is always a problem when that happens – is we just haven’t been able to put the foot down when we have had control of games,” Scott said.

Geelong have beaten all top six teams except Hawthorn this season but a loss to St Kilda would make it four losses in a row for just the second time in Scott’s illustrious coaching career.

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