In today’s AFL Briefing, your wrap of footy news:
- In another at-times heated press conference, St Kilda coach Ross Lyon was optimistic Jack Silvagni would face his old side Carlton next weekend.
- Australian Football Hall of Fame Legend Leigh Matthews has taken a major swipe at his famous rivals, Essendon.
Matthews takes aim at Bombers’ administration in hunt for new coach
Jon Pierik
Australian Football Hall of Fame Legend Leigh Matthews has taken a major swipe at Essendon, declaring anyone who has a choice wouldn’t apply for the Bombers’ vacant coaching role, and he would have no confidence in heading there under the current administration.
Matthews, a four-time premiership coach who also featured in three-straight grand finals against the Bombers as a player with arch-rival Hawthorn, declared he “wouldn’t be going to Essendon” if he was still a coach.
“From the outside I said, ‘Oh well, good luck’. If I was a coach, I wouldn’t be going to Essendon. If you desperately want a job, you just go for it, right? But, anyone who has choices ain’t going to Essendon,” Matthews told 3AW on Saturday.
The Bombers, led by president Andrew Welsh and chief executive Tim Roberts, have narrowed the search for their next senior coach to four candidates: club legend James Hird, Fremantle assistant Jaymie Graham, Sydney assistant and former Bomber Mark McVeigh and Adelaide director of coaching Murray Davis, a former long-time Brisbane Lions assistant.
Essendon caretaker coach Dean Solomon, a friend and former teammate of Hird and McVeigh, will this week have his first formal discussions with club hierarchy about the full-time job. But Solomon has remained tight-lipped on whether he’ll seek the head coaching role.
“The other coaches, whether it be Jaymie Graham, now Murray Davis, Mark McVeigh, they have been in for jobs to a degree, they have just got to get a job if they can get it … but I don’t have any idea who would be good or bad,” Matthews said.
“A coach is only as good as what’s around him in players and staff, and support from the top. For me, from the outside, I don’t know the Essendon people that well, but I would have no confidence to coach under that regime.”
The Bombers declined to comment.
Essendon have been rebuffed by other potential candidates, including Geelong assistant James Kelly, Hawthorn assistant Daniel Giansiracusa and St Kilda assistant Corey Enright.
Matthews, who is a Brisbane Lions board member and won three-straight flags there as a coach, was befuddled by the Bombers using soccer coach Kevin Muscat to interview candidates over Zoom while he is coaching Chinese club Shanghai Port.
“He is going to do a Zoom meeting from Japan with these individual candidates and get some kind of feedback from that. It’s not so much window dressing, I reckon it’s like trying to stab with a dartboard – it’s so hard,” Matthews said.
Matthews said Carlton “looked like they knew what they were doing” in their hunt for a new coach, and Tasmania had as well before appointing Ken Hinkley as coach. But, when it came to Essendon, he questioned, “how qualified are they to make an informed decision?”
Long-time opposition analyst at Collingwood and Hawthorn John Wardrop is also part of the process alongside the panel.
Hird, with the support of fellow club great Kevin Sheedy, is seeking his third stint in charge. His first was from the end of 2010 until the end of 2013, when he was banned from coaching for his role in the supplements saga. He returned for the 2015 season, but quit after a 5-14 start.
“To be honest, if Hird had been an assistant coach at another club for the last three or four years, you would think he would have already been appointed,” Matthews said.
The Bombers are also on the hunt for a new football manager after the resignation of Daniel McPherson. McPherson, who came to the Bombers with former coach Brad Scott, will leave the club at season’s end.
The appointment of a new football boss will be made alongside that of a new senior coach, as the Bombers review their football structure.
‘He is a Silvagni, he is tough’
Jon Pierik and Danny Russell
St Kilda coach Ross Lyon is optimistic Jack Silvagni will line up against his former club Carlton next week in a finals-shaping, Sunday-night blockbuster despite dislocating his shoulder in a 19-point loss to Sydney on Saturday.
Silvagni had to be helped from the field in pain in a 42-minute final term which also had play suspended after Swans defender Will Edwards suffered a badly broken ankle in a marking contest. He required a green whistle for pain relief and was taken from the field at Marvel Stadium on a motorised cart.
Swans forward Charlie Curnow booted three goals after Silvagni, his direct opponent and a former Blues teammate, left the field, highlighting the importance of the off-season recruit with the fabled family history at Princes Park.
“He has a dislocated shoulder, [but] it went back in. He said he had a dislocated shoulder before, in round one, and he played the next week,” Lyon said.
“He is a Silvagni, he is tough, we see his spirit, can’t believe we have got him in our club, but we are thrilled. But we will take no risk … we have got to get on to Carlton.”
Silvagni had his shoulder in a sling post-match when chatting in the change rooms with father Steve and mother Jo.
After a short dinner break following the Saints’ defeat, Lyon returned to Marvel Stadium to watch the Blues host the Brisbane Lions on Saturday night.
With three rounds remaining, the Saints (with nine wins) and Blues are jostling for 10th spot, and a wildcard berth, under the new top-10 finals system.
In another entertaining press conference when he sparred with journalists, Lyon denied he had spoken sternly with Mattaes Phillipou in a break during play, insisting it had been a typical conversation.
“I spoke to him calmly and rationally, but you [a journalist] have turned it into strong feedback. I was teaching him on a leading pattern when he went shallow, [and] could have gone to the top of the square like Hugo [Garcia], so I am OK, you can interpret it how you want,” he said.
Lyon said ruckman Tom De Koning was dealing with a hip pointer issue, as was superstar Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, who spent time off the ground with the ailment.
The Swans booted the first two goals of the game, but then trailed by nine points at quarter-time, 13 points at half-time and 12 points at the final break, as the Saints dominated possession and Wanganeen-Milera booted three goals.
But with the St Kilda gun clearly hampered in the final term, finishing the game out as a forward, Sydney’s midfielders went on a rampage and the Swans kicked seven last-quarter goals to the Saints’ two.
Lyon lamented his team’s poor work at stoppages, declaring the Saints need more quality in the starting 23, and need to be better for longer.
The Saints have had a series of tough defeats this season, but Lyon said he wasn’t hiding from the raw facts.
“The facts are there and are laid bare. Until you get it done, it’s two points up there against Sydney, it’s one point against Adelaide … the Dockers, I think we kicked the first goal of the last quarter, then it was ‘Wharfie Time’ [when the Dockers electrify the crowd with loud music],” Lyon said.
“The feedback is, we need to get better – I am not shying away from it. But there is no doubt we have improved, that’s indisputable, but on our win-loss, I think our percentage tells us we know where are, but against [Sydney], we are just a bit short of that on our journey.”
Play was stopped for 10 minutes while medical staff attended 23-year-old Edwards for what appeared to be a compound fracture. The promising Swan did not make his AFL debut until this year after a serious leg infection and then a broken leg threatened his career. Sydney also lost James Rowbottom with a broken hand in the first term.
Swans coach Dean Cox described Edwards’ latest injury as “devastating”.
“To see a player battle like he has for so long to get a chance at AFL with some of the injuries he’s already had, to dislocate his ankle and be required to go to hospital and get surgery, is devastating for him and the football club and his family,” Cox said.
“To forge out to be a really strong key defender for a young man is great. It’ll just be another hurdle that he has to jump, and we’ll support him all the way through it.”
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Jon Pierik is a sports journalist at The Age. He covers AFL and has won awards for his cricket and basketball writing.Connect via X or email.
