James Hird has met with his old mentor Kevin Sheedy and former Essendon president Paul Little as he plots his pursuit of the vacant Essendon coaching job.
Hird last month publicly declared his interest in returning to the Bombers as senior coach, having led the club through its infamous drugs saga in the early 2010s.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Hird, Little and Sheedy spark coaching speculation
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Essendon are yet to formalise the process by which they will appoint their next coach, but Hird says he wants to be part of it, and has support from close friends Sheedy and Little.
Hird and Little were conspicuously sat next to each other at Wednesday’s state funeral for former Essendon player and Melbourne coach Neale Daniher, who passed away from motor neuron disease just over two weeks ago.
But The Agenda Setters can reveal the pair, along with Sheedy, also met for an hour before the funeral.
“This was unmissable vision, wasn’t it? You would’ve seen this on every news bulletin tonight,” Mitch Cleary said on The Agenda Setters of Hird and Little’s pairing at the service.
“The former coach through the middle of the supplements saga, the former president who led Essendon through that supplements saga, Paul Little and James Hird.
“And what we can tell you tonight is the vision at the MCG came after a catchup between Hird, Little and Kevin Sheedy for an hour, I believe in Paul Little’s South Yarra office just off Toorak Road.
“You’ve got old Essendon there just working their way through how they infiltrate new Essendon.”
Playing the devil’s advocate on the subject, Tom Morris suggested it was “just three friends catching up, surely, Mitch?”
“I don’t think so. I think there’s got to be a little bit more to it than that,” Cleary responded.
“That’s a former president of the club, Caroline Wilson’s spoken on this show about the work Paul Little’s doing behind the scenes to try and get James Hird back to the club.
“And you’ve got Kevin Sheedy, a director more recently than Paul Little at the footy club who came out quite vocally, quite strongly, in the pursuit of James Hird to coach the Essendon footy club last time.
“I reckon they’re scheming, I reckon there’s a bit of plotting going on in the offices of South Yarra today.”
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Nick Riewoldt poured cold water on the suggestion that the trio would have been “scheming”.
“We know that’s Team James Hird, and any time those three are spotted together, there’s going to be suggestions that they’re plotting or planning, whatever you want to call it, whatever that looks like,” Riewoldt said.
“I mean, I would too if I was James Hird and I was preparing myself for a tilt on the coaching role at Essendon. I’d be referring to my mentors.
“But, again, they’re Essendon people. Today was an opportunity to pay tribute to an Essendon great.
“So I think today we can probably look past potential plotting and scheming and just accept that it was three Essendon people heading along to a tribute for an Essendon great.”
Cleary admitted the word “scheming” might have been a touch strong, but doubled down on the suggestion that there was more to it than just three friends catching up.
“James Hird’s a busy man, he spent an hour outside of the funeral to catch up with Sheedy and Little. I think there’s a bit going on,” he said.
