Hird’s Last Play: A Chance To Finally Unite The Bombers

Righto, deep breath everyone. If you’re an Essendon supporter reading this, you’ve already survived a supplements saga, multiple coaching change-ups, at least three different “five-year plans” and enough Tribunal appearances that I reckon our club should get a frequent flyer discount at AFL House. So the news that James Hird didn’t quite land the outcome he wanted this time round barely registers on the Bomber richter scale anymore. We’ve had earthquakes. This is a light tremor.

But here’s the thing that’s been sitting with me since the story broke – Hird not getting his preferred gig back at the club doesn’t mean his part in this saga is finished. If anything, it might be the perfect moment for him to do something he’s never quite managed to do in nearly two decades of being the most polarising figure in Essendon’s modern history: bring people together instead of splitting them apart.

The Bloke Who Divides A Room Like No Other

Let’s be honest about something first, because there’s no point writing this column if I’m not going to call it straight. James Hird remains, to this day, the single most argument-starting topic at any Essendon function. Mention his name at a trivia night and watch grown adults who’ve been mates for thirty years suddenly need a cooling-off period. Some see the greatest player in our history and a bloke who copped more than his fair share through the saga. Others see the bloke in the chair when it all went sideways. Both of these things can be true at once, and that’s exactly why this club has never properly healed from it.

That’s not a dig at anyone in particular. It’s just the reality of a supporter base that got dragged through years of ASADA hearings, suspensions, court dates and headlines that made us the answer to a very unwanted trivia question for the best part of a decade. When something wounds a footy club that deeply, you don’t just move past it because a new coach arrives or a first final gets won. You need someone to actually stitch the wound, not just cover it up.

Why This Almost-Opportunity Actually Matters

Now Hird hasn’t got the formal seat back at the table he was reportedly after, and plenty of Bomber fans will read that as the club drawing a line under the whole saga once and for all. Fair enough too – it’s the club’s call to make and they’re entitled to chart their own course. But missing out on the official role doesn’t mean he’s got nothing left to offer. In fact, I reckon it frees him up a bit.

Think about it. Without a formal title, without a seat on the board or a line item in the org chart, Hird has the chance to just be a Bomber again. No power plays, no factional lines, no “which camp are you in” nonsense that’s followed him round Tullamarine for years. He could show up to games, back the current administration publicly and unreservedly, mentor a young player quietly without it being a press conference, and basically model the kind of unconditional support this club has been begging its most famous alumni to show for ages.

The MRO Made Me An Expert, So Hear Me Out

Look, I’ve watched this club front the Tribunal so many times over the years I could probably represent myself if I ever got reported for a dodgy bump at the local footy. We’ve had gradings, we’ve had suspensions, we’ve had appeals that went about as well as our finals campaigns in the 2010s. You’d think after all that scrutiny we’d have thick skin as a fanbase. And we do, on the footy front. But the Hird stuff cuts differently because it’s not about a match review, it’s about identity – who we are as a club and whether we can forgive and move forward together.

That’s the bit the current administration can’t fix on their own, no matter how many best-and-fairest functions they host or how many premiership players they wheel out for photo opportunities. You need the actual figures from the saga to show, through actions not statements, that they’re all rowing in the same direction. Hird choosing graciousness here – genuinely, not through some carefully-worded statement drafted by a comms team – would do more for supporter unity than another five-year strategic vision document ever could.

What Genuine Unity Actually Looks Like

• Turning up. Just showing his face at games, home and away, without fanfare.
• Publicly and repeatedly backing the current coach and administration, even when results are ordinary.
• Staying miles away from any commentary that reopens old wounds, even when journos come sniffing for a spicy quote.
• Letting younger players and staff form their own opinion of him through actions, not through what they’ve read or heard secondhand.
• Accepting that not every Essendon person will ever fully forgive, and being okay with that instead of chasing vindication.

None of that requires a title. None of it requires the club to give him anything at all, actually. It just requires Hird to decide that being a good Bomber matters more than being a vindicated one. That’s a genuinely hard ask for any person who feels like they copped an unfair rap over a saga that, frankly, involved a lot more people than just him. I get why the temptation is always to want the record set straight publically. But sometimes the bigger, more impressive move is just letting it go and doing the quiet work instead.

A Club That’s Earned Its Scar Tissue

We’re not the same club we were in 2012. We’ve had our miracle final, we’ve had our heartbreaking finals exits, we’ve had coaches come and go, and we’ve watched a genuine flag-window slip through our fingers more than once, which if you want my honest opinion still hurts worse than any of the off-field dramas. Footy clubs are meant to be simple – you turn up, you barrack, you suffer, you occasionally celebrate. Ours got complicated by outside forces for a long stretch there, and the healing process has been slower than any of us would like.

Hird not getting the exact outcome he chased this time round isn’t the end of the story, in my view – it might genuinely be the beginning of a better one, if he chooses to see it that way. This is a club that’s tested every part of the AFL system, copped more finger-pointing than any of us signed up for, and still turns up 90,000-odd strong whenever we make a September appearance. We deserve genuine unity, not the manufactured kind that gets announced in a press release. Whether Hird decides to be part of delivering that is entirely up to him now. No title required, Hirdy. Just show up, back the boys, and let time do the rest. We’ve all waited long enough.