Whatever James Hird does next, it’s time for him to shed the entourage

James Hird’s response to the revelation that Mark McVeigh planned to meet him this week to discuss an official club role should serve as a warning sign to the new coach and everyone else at the Bombers looking to welcome him back in some capacity.

Hird, whose public performances alongside Footy Classified host Eddie McGuire on Nine (the owner of this masthead) have punctuated his redemption campaign, is now calling for privacy as he considers his professional future. That seems a bit rich.

Fair play to him – his supporters insist his disappointment was genuine. They say key Essendon bosses asked him to keep the meeting confidential. And, whether or not you believe Hird was deluded to think he could win a senior coaching role given his absence from the elite competition for the best part of 12 years, he has clearly been badly bruised by missing out. And the bruising has not yet healed.

But this from the coaching candidate whose interview with the Bombers’ selection panel was reported by this masthead in stunning detail . Those details were published by my colleague in The Age on the day McVeigh was unveiled and became public despite all candidates signing privacy declarations. I don’t know who leaked those details, and it’s immaterial who did; the fact is they did leak and Hird has not complained about that.

When Hird missed out on the job, he wished his great mate McVeigh and his old club only the best.

Surely, it would have been prudent to bury any resentment about a perceived leak – particularly so soon into McVeigh’s tenure, and particularly when McVeigh seemed so genuine at his press conference about exploring a future working relationship with his friend and former captain.

President Andrew Welsh also did not rule out a role for Hird at the club. The true news value in my report on Seven’s The Agenda Setters on Tuesday night about the Hird-Essendon meeting was that he was at least considering another lesser role at the club. He had previously said his only professional interest in his old club was the senior coaching role.

As has often been the case with Hird over the past two decades, he has been badly advised. To be brutal, McGuire, his leading and highly dramatic media enabler, has not always served him well.

Certainly, McGuire didn’t help on Channel Nine on Tuesday night when he put forward his conspiracy theory that the Bombers had leaked news of the forthcoming meeting to harm Hird’s reputation. That the leak was a “set-up”. As the reporter closest to the story, I can say it definitely was not.

While it is difficult to say whether everyone at Essendon is keen to employ Hird in some role, the motivations behind the proposed meeting seemed, at the very least, to come from respect for him.

You could argue Hird did not show the club the same respect when, on the very day McVeigh made his public debut as senior coach, Hird stated on Channel Nine that he was “pretty sure” Zach Merrett would have remained a Bomber had he won the job.

Kevin Sheedy has not been helpful to his premiership captain, either.