{"id":785886,"date":"2026-07-08T00:53:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T00:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/785886\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T00:53:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T00:53:11","slug":"afl-news-2026-essendon-bombers-james-hird-trade-period-exodus-zach-merrett-jordan-ridley-coaching-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/785886\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL News 2026: Essendon Bombers James Hird trade period exodus Zach Merrett, Jordan Ridley, coaching search"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Hird<\/a> has confirmed he will meet with Essendon<\/a> next week, as the club begins the initial stages of the process to find its next senior coach.<\/p>\n

The Bombers reportedly want someone who understands the inner workings of the club<\/a> to take the reins, putting Hird and interim coach Dean Solomon in the box seat, though they will likely canvas a dozen candidates in the process.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On the tools: James Hird in his role as director of coaching at Port Melbourne.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

The former Dons coach says he has a plan for the future direction of the club and will begin laying that out for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cEssendon has spoken about the process and I\u2019m just looking forward to going through the process, it\u2019s going to be an exhaustive process, and next week I\u2019ll sit down with them and have a brief catch-up,\u201d Hird told Nine\u2019s Footy Classified.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got a text from someone at the club asking for a catch-up next week and I think it\u2019ll be a number of steps if you get all the way (through the process).<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad they\u2019re going through a process. I always said they would go through an extensive process. That\u2019s what everyone at Essendon and every supporter wants.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, I\u2019ve thought about this a lot. I\u2019ve thought about what I want to do, the things I will do if I do get the job and get through the process, but it\u2019s also in conjunction with what the club wants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe club has been very forthright in saying they want someone who will come in and do it \u2018the Essendon way\u2019 and do the job in conjunction with Essendon, so I think part of the first meeting is finding out what they want, what I would like to do, and how that mixes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hird said he has people around the AFL<\/a> industry in mind for assistant coaches should he land the job, but he won\u2019t be divulging who at this early stage of the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t (mention names) because you have no idea if you\u2019re going to get the job or not,\u201d Hird said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got people who I\u2019d love to work with and people who I have got in mind, but until you have some mind about whether you\u2019re anywhere near the job, I think it would be wrong to reach out to people and ask them because how do they know (that you\u2019ll get the job).\u201d<\/p>\n

Essendon will likely have another busy trade period, with Zach Merrett, Jordan Ridley, Darcy Parish and potentially others likely to request moves to rival clubs.<\/p>\n

Merrett and Ridley did so in 2025, wanting to get to Hawthorn and Brisbane respectively, and they are expected to do the same at the end of this season.<\/p>\n

Hird said his hope would be, if appointed coach, to get in front of anybody wanting out and see if he can change a few minds.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d want to know which players they think are going to stay and which aren\u2019t, you\u2019d want to know what your list is going to look like,\u201d Hird said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the questions you\u2019d be asking the club, where they think the list is at and you\u2019ve got your own ideas on those players.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were lucky enough to get the job, you\u2019d certainly want to sit down with the players who potentially are going to leave who you want to stay and sell them the dream and see if you can keep them, if you want them to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Essendon is currently languishing in 18th spot on the ladder. They\u2019ve won one game for the season and haven\u2019t won a match in Victoria for over 12 months at this point, leading to the sacking of Brad Scott.<\/p>\n

They were belted by St Kilda in round 17 to the tune of 67 points, with Solomon still winless as caretaker coach. They now head to Brisbane for the daunting task of taking on the Lions at the Gabba.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Hird has confirmed he will meet with Essendon next week, as the club begins the initial stages…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-785886","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785886","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=785886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}