{"id":264647,"date":"2025-11-05T16:25:36","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T16:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/264647\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T16:25:36","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T16:25:36","slug":"essendon-bombers-approach-former-player-ted-richards-to-join-board-of-directors-to-replace-dean-solomon-aflw-finals-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/264647\/","title":{"rendered":"Essendon Bombers approach former player Ted Richards to join board of directors to replace Dean Solomon; AFLW finals launch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Solomon, a 2000 premiership Bomber, was a long time assistant coach at Fremantle, Gold Coast and GWS. He was also an interim senior coach at the Suns.<\/p>\n

Bombers president Andrew Welsh last month said Solomon\u2019s replacement needed to have a football background.<\/p>\n

\u201cA process is already underway to fill Dean\u2019s vacant board position, with that person having a football background to ensure we still maintain football expertise at board level,\u201d Welsh said.<\/p>\n

The Bombers say Solomon is an ideal addition to their coaching crew, where he has been put in charge of defence.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Solly\u2019 needed to take a lot into consideration, including relocating from NSW, but after careful thought, he embraced the opportunity, and we were rapt that he accepted this role as an assistant coach to get back into the trenches and help fast-track the development of the team,\u201d Welsh said.<\/p>\n

The Bombers endured a tumultuous second half of 2025 on and off the field.<\/p>\n

Injuries and poor form meant they quickly fell from top-eight contention, while Merrett\u2019s failed bid to join the Hawks, the public disappointment of this expressed by his teammates, and then-president David Barham\u2019s decision to step down <\/a>added to the drama.<\/p>\n

AFLW not ready for Marvel Stadium grand final<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n

The AFLW grand final will be moved to Marvel Stadium only when league boss Emma Moore is confident of the decider selling out.<\/p>\n

Loading<\/p>\n

With three of this weekend\u2019s four finals<\/a> to be held at Ikon Park, the showpiece match of the season is also set to be staged at the 13,000-capacity ground on November 29.<\/p>\n

The only way it won\u2019t be at Carlton\u2019s home venue is if the third-ranked Brisbane Lions win their qualifying final and rampaging minor premiers North Melbourne<\/a> fail to qualify for the grand final.<\/p>\n

Since the AFLW moved to starting the season in August in 2022, and finishing in November, the last game of the year hasn\u2019t been played in a stadium.<\/p>\n

Fitting AFLW in around cricket, concerts and major events<\/a> is a major complicating factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we\u2019re at the stage in the competition where we\u2019ve grown so much that we are bursting out of the venues that we\u2019re playing at, and when we know we\u2019re going to fill Marvel Stadium and create a fantastic grand final experience, that\u2019s when we\u2019ll play at those venues,\u201d Moore said on Wednesday at the AFLW finals launch.<\/p>\n

Players are desperate to have more than 12 rounds in a season, with the league setting out ambitious metrics for further expansion.<\/p>\n

\"AFLW<\/p>\n

AFLW boss Emma Moore at the finals launch.Credit: AFL Photos<\/p>\n

Clubs took the unorthodox step last weekend of appealing to fans through social media to attend their games because they needed the crowd figures to ensure longer seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really year zero to one of that strategy where we\u2019re really focused on growth in terms of our fan base as well as on the field,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve grown this season in terms of what we were going after, and we\u2019ve also seen some really great growth in terms of our AFLW membership.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen growth year-on-year in terms of attendance. We had a really specific approach in our strategy in terms of discovery games, marquee games and priority games for the league … what we\u2019ve seen is somewhere between 27 to 38 per cent growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore confirmed the AFLW would again proceed with a night grand final following on from the first under-lights decider last year between the Kangaroos and Lions.<\/p>\n

Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Solomon, a 2000 premiership Bomber, was a long time assistant coach at Fremantle, Gold Coast and GWS. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-264647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}