James Hird — January 2017 onwards

Still paying it!

Knights was the rebound coach. Turns out it was in more ways the one.

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Easy in hindsight. I can accept that Knights was an unusual pick, but that does not mean Sheedy should have stayed. At the time I was very unhappy at the way he got pushed aside. He has since admitted himself he was probably done at Essendon. Although his showmanship at GWS was phenomenal, he did not get them playing winning football. Transitional arrangements did not work for the Woods and a fresh start with an outside coach was probably best.

I love Sheedy and always will.
As a coach, as an ambassadorfor the game, and as a guy who will just talk to fans.
I don’t mean just…stand there next to fans and sign an autograph, but really genuinely talk to fans.

But he made things impossible in that last year.
He was told to focus, nuh.
No, seriously, or we’ll replace you.
Nuh.
We’re going to replace you.
No you won’t.
We’ve replaced you.
OMGZ THIS IS SO UNFAIR!

He was never going to go quietly, but…he could have handled a whole lot of things a whole lot better at that time.

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Um, you’ve quoted me but then removed the bits I wrote and the quote of someone else. That was all written by @Nocturnal, not me.

I don’t see how any of that is attributable to Knights. Hird, Thompson, and the football department during that period, yes. Knights, no.

Nocturnal said:

"We sacked [Sheeds], retired Hird, and installed a guy who had done sweet ■■■■ all at any level in coaching. A total unproven person.

Gee the board and Jackson seriously ■■■■■■ up! And we have paid the price for it ever since."

And he is right. Ever since.

Knights achieved bugger-all, and had to be sacked in the face of a player and coterie revolt. Finals wins under him = 0. The lack of success under Knights was pretty much attributable to Knights. And of course to Peter Jackson and the board who had announced they were replacing Sheedy with “the best coach in Australia” - not even the best available. The best. Knights wasn’t even the best at Essendon.

To recover lost ground, the grand plan was hatched to bring in Hird, Thompson, and to catch up on the sports science that had just won flags for Collingwood, Geelong and Hawthorn. We all know how that panned out. Hird had the team in line for finals; the lack of success in that period can be attributed to AFL bastardry, not to him.

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Apols Ants, I’ll be more careful of the quoting function. I take it you agree with me then?

Knights getting into finals was actually a huge success with the list he had. It was poorer than what Sheedy had but Sheedy didn’t get us into finals in 2005 to 2007. Knights had the thankless task of cutting the dead wood, and that and his style meant he fell out with players and rightfully had to go. But the recruitment during his period and development of players was pretty decent. His gameplan was actually potentially ahead of its time, and definitely reflected the strengths of the list at the time.

To blame Knights on the fact our football department is deplorable is just plain wrong. Almost sinfully so. It wasn’t him providing a bare bones budget. That was the board and Jackson.

The board that appointed Knights was probably wrong, and was clearly (with hindsight) incompetent. However, the actual Knights original appointment itself was not particularly bad, it was everything they did to support him (or rather, not), our football department & recruitment funding, and then extending his contract which were the major issues. Blaming Knights for our poor woes later is a pretty biased view of history, IMO.

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Even if we allow all that, @Nocturnal is still correct: PJ and the board stuffed up and we have been paying for it ever since.

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Since I think he was specifically saying recruiting Knights is why we have been paying for it ever since, I disagree.

If the argument is that the board who recruited Knights fundamentally screwed the goose on any number of other issues, that contributed to us paying ever since, then that is a fairer argument.

But at the end of the day, if the later board and admin had tighter controls on Dank, then there is no issue. Waiving off that group’s responsibility when simply controlled monitoring and reporting of what was being taken and the plans seems to be a huge free pass to those responsible at the time.

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Knight I think, was bought in to be the hatchet man. Cut the list.

Not allowing a great coach and teacher of coaches in sheeds to recruit, educate and hand over to Hird who we can all acknowledge appeared to have some coaching talent was a mistake.

All of our issues, the failed tenure of Knights, subsequently desperate hiring of Hird, the what appears Poor inexperienced coach in hiring Robinson and Dank can be tracked back to that decision.

In my view it was a big mistake!

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He failed at that.

Sheeds is the biggest rewriter of history. This thought buble should be filed alongside Judd for Lloyd. Drafting Selwood if we had a priority pick.

There are heaps of things he has floated about this time that weren’t seriously considered.

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There ‘are’ heaps of things.

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Thanks mate.

Corrected and noted.

Always here for you, bud :slight_smile:

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You forgot the full stop.

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