{"id":884558,"date":"2026-09-08T15:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T15:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/884558\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T15:00:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T15:00:21","slug":"afl-news-2026-james-hird-essendon-bombers-meeting-footy-classified-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/884558\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2026: James Hird Essendon Bombers meeting; Footy Classified comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Hird<\/a> has explained the circumstances around a potential meeting with Essendon<\/a>, revealing his disappointment that it took only an hour for the news to leak.<\/p>\n

On Seven\u2019s Agenda Setters, Caroline Wilson said there was a plan for Essendon to meet with Hird over a role at the club after he missed out on the head coaching job. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

James Hird on Footy Classified.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

Hird, with a smirk, confessed that he received a text at 6.35pm from an Essendon figure about a meeting and then heard it mentioned on television an hour later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little disappointing that gets leaked out before I\u2019ve had a chance to think about it, but that\u2019s the industry we\u2019re in,\u201d he said on Nine\u2019s Footy Classified. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m disappointed a private, potential meeting gets out in the public place before I have the chance to think about what I want to do and whether it\u2019s something I\u2019m interested in. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s disappointing because when you are thinking about your future and your career, you\u2019d like to be able to do that behind closed doors to an extent, and you should be entitled to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Host Eddie McGuire then directly asked if Hird\u2019s heart sank when he heard the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was upset the club had leaked that out, yes,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Hird would not confirm who sent the text message. He did, however, state he\u2019d been in contact with new coach and friend Mark McVeigh since he\u2019d been appointed. <\/p>\n

McGuire put it to Hird that the text and subsequent leak was deliberately orchestrated and a \u201csetup\u201d for the club legend to say no to a meeting to suggest he was only interested in the head coaching role for himself, not the club.<\/p>\n

Hird wasn\u2019t willing to confirm his thoughts but said, \u201cthere is the potential that\u2019s the reason it was done\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cwe\u2019ll see\u201d when asked if he would take part in the meeting but did admit he\u2019ll have a conversation with the person who sent the text to address how it was leaked.<\/p>\n

Hird was in the running for the head coaching job after Brad Scott was sacked in May<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He missed out on the role to his friend McVeigh who said it was \u201cdifficult\u201d to go through the process against one of his best mates<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Hird has explained the circumstances around a potential meeting with Essendon, revealing his disappointment that it took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-884558","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\/884558","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=884558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}