Not likely Polly. I’ve made this point before, but Freo aren’t high on the list of coaching destinations. On the bright side there are only 18 AFL Head Coaching jobs available, which means we’re still a chance at getting someone good – just not the most highly sought after.
RM, I don’t know what Hird knew, but it seems unreasonable to me for a Head Coach to know precisely what Thymosin beta-4 is and how it works. For every hour he’s trying to get his head around pharmacology it’s an hour less for him to talk to players or study game tape. But someone other than the Head Coach should be across this. I think in Essendon’s case perhaps this was what they had in mind for Bomber, but I think Hird’s ego and maybe Bomber’s life circumstances meant this didn’t happen. But on paper that Thompson and Hird combination is probably a decent mix, albeit you’d structure it differently.
Shane, in the structure I laid out (which I think is similar to what you had in mind) I still think the CEO would be active on the football side. Effectively it would be splitting Bell’s role into Footy Manager and List Manager, which means you still need someone sitting over the top of everyone. I think that is probably the CEO, so they’d need to have some visibility as to how the football side was all working.
