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Essendon's need for a throrough review | The Eminently Sensible Phil Davis (27.05.26)
27 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What are Phil Davis's thoughts on Essendon's current situation?
on Wednesday as we tap the eminently sensible mind of Phil Davis. Phil, welcome back. Morning, Gerard. We thought Carlton was fertile ground for eminently sensible minds. Essendon is just giving plenty at the moment.
Yeah. Two of the most sort of like esteemed clubs, two of the big four, Gerard, and both on very shaky grounds. And I think we're all trying to work out, is it self-inflicted or what's happening?
Yeah.
And where do they go next? All right, so let's start with the decision to sack Brad Scott. How do you assess that?
Yeah, I work with a diehard Essendon fan called Luke and he came up to me yesterday and he's like, oh, what are your thoughts? Blah, blah, blah. He's like, what's Gerard going to say? We're just chatting about that. And I thought that clearly it got to a point where it was inevitable, was my view, was that that's the way it was going. I thought Brad handled himself so well across.
I just thought the weekend was a strange one to be the final game. Basically, I had no players by halftime. And the game really changed at halftime, particularly, you know, I don't know, before the game fully fit, maybe Eston just beats Richmond. I don't know. I don't think it's like that clear cut.
You've got a lot of young talent versus another young side, but the injuries, it just seemed like a strange one to be the one that, you know, the straw that broke the camel's back. But I think big picture, It was inevitable. It looked like that's the way it was always going from what you read and what you saw. But it just seemed like the weekend was just the strange game to pick.
So there's a certain degree of losing that can't be absorbed, but the losing is part of the plan. I think that's the contradiction in where Essendon finds itself. It chose a path and on the evidence of yesterday, didn't fully appreciate the path that had gone down.
Yes, and I think if we look back also, last year injuries were used quite convincingly to be like, hey, this is why it's been a bit rocky, but we're also going to go to the draft.
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Chapter 2: What led to the decision to sack Brad Scott as coach?
And then this year's been not much better on the injury front for them either. So as you say, you stop playing middle-aged players and stop topping up and you go younger and you go younger. The results will follow that and the results aren't always great. But if you listen to Brad and the alignment that he's got from the new CEO and then Andrew Welsh, the president,
It seemed as though that was the path. So there's something has just fallen off the tracks here and it's hard to get exactly what that is. Is it the fact that they need a change? Is there another bigger play here? I'm not sure, but it did seem as though the plan was to go young and absorb the losses. Well, at least that was communicated to us frequently.
And then immediately we're in the grip of James Heard fever and whether he is going to return to Essendon. And forthrightly, he says he would love to.
You know, I think it's always nice when someone comes out and is already willing to put their hand up and not play too coy. And, you know, the other thing I was talking to my friend at work yesterday about is a diehard Essendon fan, Joe. Like I get all my Essendon from there. And he was like, well, if Hurdy came back, it'd be fun. It'd be interesting.
You know, I think he could absorb, you know, he's got the faith and he could absorb the hard times. But to me, Joe, they've got very, very clear fork in the road decision here. It's either A, do you go back to what Essendon has historically been around, like the history of the club. If you're an Essendon person, you're an Essendon person. This is who we are. This is what we do.
This is how we've been for a hundred odd years. And that would probably be James Hurd. Or is it a time for a complete shift and a complete adaptation to what Essendon means? Not in terms of the absolute fabric, but how it operates and the operating model. And then you'd go down a completely different path. So I think to me, it seems like a pretty clear fork in the road.
If they go back to James, to me, that is like a way to keep running what they've got. And maybe if it goes well, that's fantastic. And I've dealt with James before. And he's a very, very good operator. But if it doesn't, it's almost like it could be the fizzling out of what Essendon and how it operated for, you know, let's call it the last 40 years, Jared, how it's operated.
And then they move on to how the other clubs are sort of going.
If you were drawn to make a recommendation, what would you recommend? Which path?
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