SEN Breakfast
"I would take a deep breath before responding" | Tim Watson on Welsh, Hird, Bombers (28.05.26)
27 May 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Breakfast with Gary and Tim. The good oil for Cobramers State. Australia's most awarded extra virgin olive oil. Grown, harvested and first cold pressed in Northern Victoria.
Great to have you with us on this Thursday. Had a big game tonight between the Hawks and the Saints at Marvel Stadium. Looking forward to that. Jack Gunston back for the Hawks. As is Will Day, which is great news. And from a St Kilda point of view, Isaac Keeler in as well. And the young Viking, Alex Tarou, is in. So that'll be great watching.
Got a big show, Rory Lobbs shortly, Sam Edmund, Corey Mabiliogian, Georgie Samios. But this is a question I'll put to you. We've had 24 hours since we've been discussing this whole Western situation. Right. It's not going away. You can talk about anything you want, our audience. You can text us or you can ring 1-300-736-736. You can set the agenda. But right now it is all about the bombers.
You've had a day to digest it all. Just give me your take right now. How do you sit and how do you feel about the whole situation, the prospect that James heard? We've heard Ken Inkley. Actually, let's have a listen to Ken Inkley first of all about the coaching process. He was on Gerrard yesterday.
I can't imagine anyone entering the race for the Essendon coaching job with James now looking like he's one out, one back in a Nepal position with... With all the things that have gone on in the past, it looks like this is somewhat James Heard's job and Essendon have got to decide if that is actually the way Essendon want to rebuild their club.
They've got every right to do that, but they need to clear the air with that first.
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Chapter 2: What recent developments are affecting the Essendon coaching situation?
Would that go for you, that you wouldn't put yourself into any sort of process if invited until Essendon decided what James Heard's position was?
Absolutely. I don't think anyone would be prepared to be in the race too deep.
So there's some app issues at the moment. Just acknowledge that. I haven't spilled any coffee, but the app has just gone down. We're working on it. Our people are working on it. So Adam Simpson, just let me have Adam and then you can say. Adam Simpson last night on 360 followed up.
Looking at it now, it'd be difficult to run for that position until they get that sort of... I think Ken nailed it today. It feels like it's snowballed now to a point where there needs to be a decision made before anyone... What decision needs to be made before... What are they doing? They're going to run a process, is what they said. Yeah, it'll be a one-man process at the moment.
I can't see anyone going for this job. Now, I'm not speaking on behalf of every coach or assistant coach or... Whoever's out on a horse, but how I feel about it is it'd be difficult to go for that process when it doesn't feel like it's an even playing field.
Strong words from both Ken Hinckley and Adam Simpson. No, really strong, really strong words. And I don't know that there's ever been a situation like this in the time that I've been following football as a kid.
I can't recall a time like this where we're dealing with somebody who has been and is a legend of a football club publicly putting their hand up like this, that they want to coach, and then others out there on the landscape that are potential coaches saying, possibly not wanting to go through this process because they believe that there's already been a decision made around this.
So the only thing the club... I would take a deep breath. If I'm Andrew Welsh or anybody associated with the club, I would take a deep breath before I responded to this. And he's a very strategic person, Andrew Welsh. You only have to look at his own background in terms of business and what he's been able to achieve as an individual to understand how he thinks about things.
I would take as much time, I would take as much counsel as you need to... to work out what your strategy is going forward. That's without even uttering anything publicly about what you might put in place in terms of the search for your coach. I love the fact the game is built on emotion and that emotion is built in the fans and that's why people care so much about AFL.
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Chapter 3: How does James Hird's potential return impact the coaching process?
That's why they care so much about their team. But you do have to separate, if you are a person making decisions, you do have to separate that from the logical decisions and the route that you need to take to find the best possible person that you can as part of your coaching panel to lead your team. Do you think Essendon can still do that?
Do you think Essendon's still with the interest... I think that's a challenge. That is a challenge. I'm not saying it's easy, Gary, because I think... Because it's my club, I understand the emotion as much, I think, as anybody does, and even Michael Long and the fact that he...
I've never seen anybody effectively come out like... And Michael Long holds a very, very powerful position in terms of the hearts and minds of the Essendon fans as well. Come out and support somebody like that, almost in a campaign style. Like, I... Look, there's always recency bias when you're thinking about things, but I can't recall that.
On top of what we already had there as James putting up his hand, which I think is a brave thing to do, by the way, to put your hand up there and say, okay, I am publicly declaring that this is what I want to do. Now- After that, you've got to look at the fallout, the fallout from the football club. You've got the rank and file.
You've got passionate SM people who are both business people, who are non-business people, but they're all associated, attached, emotionally connected to a football club, and they all have an opinion. And some of those are at odds with other SM fans. I know. I have sympathy for... So let's just work out what's happened.
What's happened is Essendon have moved on Brad Scott and appointed an interim coach and declared that they are going to run a process. That's all they've done, right? That's all they've done, yep. So James Heard has said, well, if there is a process to be run, I'd like to be in it. And we saw the bombshell that was and how that landed.
But now you've got Ken Inkley saying, well, I'm not entering until you tell me what's going on with James Heard. How can Essendon say what's going on with James Heard unless they're going to appoint him or not appoint him? So they'll say their response to Ken would be, I would imagine, if they stay true to what they said, What do you want me to say about James Heard?
We're running a process, and if he's part of that process, then he'll interview like you would if you were part of the process. Now, what Ken and Adam and I, I'm a bit in this camp, and others are suggesting is, well, is that really going to be a fair process?
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Chapter 4: What are Ken Hinkley's views on the Essendon coaching process?
And who can run that process and park the emotion surrounding the whole James Heard groundswell? Yeah, yeah. Or for or against? Who can run it if they're, you know, you can see the pro Heard, and then you can see the anti-Heard. Yeah, and it's not going to satisfy some for Andrew Welsh or anybody at the football club to say, no, this is not a boat race.
Like we haven't, in our minds, we haven't appointed anybody as the coach of the Essendon Football Club. We're not, we haven't, and I don't know this to be true or not true, that we don't have a target. This is not necessarily the person that we've all identified that we want to coach, be it James Heard or somebody else.
I mean, we're talking about James Heard, but it might be that Andrew Welsh or others at the board believe that You know, they'd like to go after John Longmire or they'd like to go after Ken Hink. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question.
What they have to answer, though, now is whether or not they're going to... how they're going to set this process up, how they're going to appease all the Essendon fans out there because they're your football club. Those people who genuinely, emotionally are connected to the idea of James Hurd coming back to your football club, they are your football club. Yeah, they are.
And we've got one of them coming in to talk about wine in a minute, so we'll ask him what he thinks about it as well. This is... So I had 24 hours to think about it as well, like everyone else. And this is what makes it such a, you talk about how fascinating it is. So James is saying, I want to get back into coaching with Essendon.
And Essendon may or may not say, yeah, well, we want to run you through the process. Would James apply for the Carlton Football Club job? And would Carlton seriously consider James Heard as a candidate for their coaching job? Sorry, you're asking me that question. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that.
I don't think that he wants to coach anywhere else other than he wants to coach Essendon. No, I think that's probably the answer to the first one. But would Carlton, let's say Carlton are in the process of putting together whatever, a short list, long list, it doesn't matter. Would James Hurd be in that, do you think?
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Chapter 5: How does emotion play a role in the coaching decisions at Essendon?
No, I wouldn't have thought so. No, I wouldn't have thought so. Yes, so therefore Essendon's appointment of him is, which we all understand, is unbelievably unique, right? If Carlton can't see him as in the top 30 candidates, how can he then be the number one man to coach Essendon? Correct. Correct. Because this is a unique situation. And I had... And this... You know, like, I've...
looked at it for so many different sides and i still i still believe you go through the process that's that's what i think but i can see i've had arguments presented to me from all sorts of people yesterday um via text and and via phone messaging and all sorts of things okay and i listen to these people and i understand what it is they're saying and maybe
Maybe in all of this, maybe there is an outrider. Maybe there is a unique, different situation that applies to what we're talking about now that may seem illogical, but for various other reasons, it can become logical when you can demonstrate that you could be, and you've spoken about this before, about a head coach, a general manager type coach person that coaches that.
Then you bring in all the other people beneath you and you have people You're the great strategist and you've got the great development coach and then you've got the great line coaches, defensive coaches, like all those people, midfield, all those people. Like if you build a team, I don't know, like James may have a team identified. They might knock the socks off everyone. Well, that can work.
I don't know that he has or he hasn't got that, but maybe he has. And all the things that people are concerned about in terms of Hurd being the coach, he can be that figurehead of that. He can coach the club, not just the team, in a whole different way that make people feel optimistic about Essendon again. Okay, we're going to take a break. There are some issues, nationwide issue for the app.
The tech team's working on it at the moment. Our AM band is working, so that's 11.16 AM on the radio. I'm not sure that's going to help the app listeners because they can't hear us. The online streaming is down, so I apologise for that. Hey, we'll get back to this. It is a big topic. Georgie Samios is a big Essendon man and part of the inner sanctum there, so he'll have his thoughts.
We'll also talk about it more with Sam from Edmond. Sam from Edmond.
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Chapter 6: What challenges does Essendon face in their coaching search?
Sam Edmond. Sam from Edmond when he joins us out of 8 o'clock. But we're going to take a break. Rory Lobb from the Western Bulldogs to join us next.