With James Hird and GWS quietly parting ways following the 2022 season, the former Essendon coach currently does not have an AFL job for 2023.
Code Sports reports that the Bomber great will now focus on business interests outside of the AFL.
Hird put his hand up for the vacant coaching job at Essendon, but ultimately lost out to Brad Scott.
Kane Cornes wonders if this is the end for the 49-year-old’s pursuit of another AFL senior coaching job.
“This was always my issue with James Hird going for the senior job. I didn’t think he’d done the work to get into a position to have success in that senior role and when I say ‘do the work’, just by the very nature that he’s been out of the system,” Cornes told SEN Breakfast.
“When you’re out of it for a while it’s hard. To go back in for a little bit and then take a new senior job I thought was going to be difficult for him.
“Now that he is out of the system completely, is that James saying ‘okay, I’m giving up the job of being a senior coach’ because there would’ve been 10 clubs that would have hired him as an assistant coach.
“That would’ve been great. If he had gone back, worked in the midfield, coached them and then went to different areas like Michael Voss did at Port Adelaide.”
David King praised Hird for his impact at the Giants, but agrees that he likely won’t coach at the top level again.
“Will he coach again? Probably not. I think the opportunity was there at Essendon, he took a risk, he put himself on the line, maybe he was given advice to do that and that advice didn’t turn out to be correct,” he said.
“I think he’s a wonderful asset. If he was working with your leadership group, I’d still have him involved.
“You speak to any of the players that he works with … it’s an absolute investment.
“I think some of the work he did with Stephen Coniglio was really impactful. He was in trouble as a player Coniglio and I think Hird helped him get back to his best AFL form.”
Hird served as head coach of Essendon between 2011 and 2013, missed the 2014 season due to AFL suspension and returned for 2015.