Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nThe Herald Sun\u2019s Jon Ralph said the race to be Essendon coach had \u201cofficially ramped up\u201d with \u201ccoffee dates\u201d set to take place over the coming weeks. <\/p>\n
Bombers great and former coach Hird has been confirmed as one of the candidates, along with several untried assistant coaches. <\/p>\n
\u201cToday, Essendon began the process of contacting 10 senior coaching aspirants, and it\u2019s asking them to apply for the club\u2019s vacant role,\u201d Ralph told On the Couch on Kayo Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the very strong message from Essendon tonight is they (candidates) are not scared off by this task – not by the spectre of James Hird, and certainly not by the spectre of the rebuild and how significant it might be.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose chats will take place in the next fortnight, then they will progress through to four or five of those people potentially putting in full submissions to the coaching search.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Ralph the main contenders are Hird, while interim coach Dean Solomon, James Kelly, Hayden Skipworth, Daniel Pratt and James Rahilly are said to be in the mix. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Essendon view is those aspirants realise a lot of the heavy lifting has been conducted with the last couple of years of drafting,\u201d Ralph said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe question those coaches would have to ask themselves is whether they would survive the rebuild. So, they\u2019re open to a coffee date.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, James Hird has a plan to save Essendon. It is a compelling pitch. His dream is very much still alive tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Veteran reporter Caroline Wilson said on Channel 7\u2019s Agenda Setters former Sydney Swans coach John Longmire is also in the mix. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are at least 10 more candidates that are going to be contacted this week, my understanding is John Longmire is among them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Dean Solomon is 0-7 with an average losing margin of 43 points since taking over mid-season and he\u2019s believed to be out of the running. <\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like the longer this goes for Dean Solomon \u2026 I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be his job \u2026 if you keep losing in this manner,\u201d Jonathan Brown said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still feel as if Hird and Solomon together would be a combination that would be attractive to the Essendon hierarchy.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it feels like the longer this goes, the more and more Hirdy comes into the picture.\u201d<\/p>\n
St Kilda great Leigh Montagna said Essendon will need to pivot to a \u201cplan B\u201d given Solomon is yet to get a win on the board. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a great Essendon person, a great football person and I\u2019m sure his heart\u2019s in the right place,\u201d Montagna said on AFL 360.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut from what we\u2019re seeing on the field at the moment, it would be very hard to be able to appoint him as the next coach because he was meant to be the guy that, if nothing else, just galvanised the playing group in regard to their spirit and playing for the jumper and playing with passion, and we haven\u2019t even seen that from them.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, the disappointing thing is it\u2019s only going to get tougher from here.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, their losses have been against, let\u2019s put it bluntly, not the best teams in the competition, when you\u2019re looking at St Kilda and West Coast and Carlton, teams like that, but their next seven games, they\u2019re playing against the Brisbane Lions, the Giants, Hawthorn, Adelaide, Geelong and Sydney.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to get worse, so it\u2019s going to be awfully hard, and it was reported that Andrew Welsh\u2019s plan A was Dean Solomon as his preferred candidate.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe needs to start thinking about plan B, because it\u2019s looking really dire \u2026 it makes me feel that maybe James Hird is the answer for this football club because it\u2019s not so much about the X\u2019s and O\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe playing list is going to be the playing list over the next few years. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re gonna have to do some hard yards, but they just need someone to bring a bit of soul back to that football club, galvanise the fan base, and just get them playing for pride for the jumper.<\/p>\n
Montagna added of Hird: \u201cWhy not? He can\u2019t hurt and if he\u2019s so invested and wants to do it so badly, and he\u2019s going to do everything you can. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe can\u2019t hurt, because it\u2019s going to be some heavy lifting for whichever coach takes over.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Hird is on the list of candidates to be Essendon\u2019s next coach as the Bombers begin the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,277557,85],"class_list":["post-783162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-ncaeditorialkayoprogram","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783162","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=783162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}