{"id":58936,"date":"2025-08-11T02:09:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T02:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/58936\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T02:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T02:09:10","slug":"adam-simpson-former-west-coast-coach-rules-himself-out-of-melbourne-coaching-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/58936\/","title":{"rendered":"Adam Simpson: Former West Coast coach rules himself out of Melbourne coaching race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adam Simpson has ruled himself out of contention for Melbourne\u2019s coaching job, declaring he was \u201cnot in the right headspace\u201d to put his hand up for the role.<\/p>\n

It comes as Simpson revealed the Demons had not yet contacted him to seek out his interest in becoming coach in the wake of Simon Goodwin\u2019s dismissal last week.<\/p>\n

Simpson had been considered among the frontrunners to step into the top job at Melbourne, along with fellow premiership coach John Longmire. But the pair have now both removed themselves from contention.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to coach next year,\u201d Simpson said on SEN.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I\u2019ll give it a spell.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking through it over the weekend, and I know \u2018Horse\u2019 (Longmire) has done the same thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just doesn\u2019t feel like it\u2019s the right time to be available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Melbourne made their sacking call on Goodwin last Monday, but a week later, Simpson said he had yet to hear from anyone at the club, saying: \u201cThey haven\u2019t called me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd sometimes you wait for these things because you might think, \u2019I\u2019m not interested\u2019, but then you get the phone call and you go, \u2018Oh hang on, now I\u2019m wanted\u2019, and then you sort of pivot in a different way,\u201d Simpson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019ve had a good think about it and I\u2019m just not in the right headspace with it. I\u2019m enjoying all this (media work).\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SimpsonCamera IconSimpson after exiting as Eagles coach last year. Credit: Daniel Carson\/AFL Photos<\/p>\n

The 2018 Eagles premiership coach said he had realised over the weekend that his passion and preparation to potentially take on the role was not where it needed to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe passion to go through all the process… because once you get approached, it\u2019s turbo, and you need to really be prepared. I\u2019m not really prepared and not in the right headspace,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Longmire and Simpson\u2019s decisions leave ex-Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley and outgoing Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley as the leading candidates for Melbourne who boast significant experience in the top role, while untried assistants such as Hayden Skipworth and Daniel Giansiracusa are also in the mix.<\/p>\n

Simpson\u2019s call comes 13 months after he coached the last of his 242 Eagles games – against Goodwin\u2019s Demons – with the 49-year-old taking on a role in the media this year with SEN and Fox Footy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adam Simpson has ruled himself out of contention for Melbourne\u2019s coaching job, declaring he was \u201cnot in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[638,64,63,7804,588,85,7067],"class_list":{"0":"post-58936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-melbourne-demons","12":"tag-sport","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-west-coast-eagles"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58936","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=58936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}