ESSENDON coach James Hird remains confident he’ll keep his job once a full-scale review of the club’s football department is complete.
Hird has been under increasing pressure this year as the World Anti-Doping Agency prepares to make its appeal against the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal’s findings into the club’s 2012 supplements program, recording just five wins for the season, with a review into the football department launched last week.
Former North Melbourne forward David King wrote in today’s Herald Sun that Hird and the Bombers’ brand of football has “failed all year” and that “this current regime has failed and more particularly the confidence in these leaders has been lost”.
But Hird remains of the belief that the club will keep him on, with his contract set to run until the end of 2016.
“I think so, but that’s not really for me to speculate,” he said today.
“My job is to coach the team as well as I can, win as many games as we can and play the best football we can over the next four weeks. That’s what I can do.
“Speculating or worrying about how a review is going that’s underway is not my role. I will do the best job I can and the result will be what it will be.”
As far as he is concerned, the WADA “cloud” will remain whoever is in charge.
“There’s no doubt that until the WADA decision is handed down there is still a cloud over the club. And until that gets removed, then we’re all just waiting,” Hird said.
“But whether I’m at the club or someone else is the coach, that WADA appeal will still be there. I think once that goes, and we believe the guys will be found not guilty, then we can all move on.”
He is adamant that despite another week of explosive revelations, the team has its eye firmly on tomorrow’s clash with Adelaide.
Bombers midfielder Brendon Goddard lashed those who have leaked information throughout the investigation process as “cowards”, with former interim coach Mark Thompson saying last week that the club is “drowning” and “going nowhere” with players “mentally damaged”, but Hird insists the latest developments have had no impact on his side.
“They’re upbeat, they just want to play,” he said.
“The guys have been through a lot obviously but they just want to play footy and be allowed to play football with as little trouble as possible, as little hype as possible.”
Tayte Pears will return for his first game since 2013, but Michael Hurley will miss another week with a knee injury.
“We thought it’d be a one-week injury, then a two-week injury and he may have just stirred it up last week … we’re very confident he’ll be right next week,” Hird said.
