‘Fully loves it’: James Hird’s leap from a Bomber to a Borough
Essendon great James Hird is getting a kick out of his move back into coaching, helping Brendan McCartney at iconic Victorian club Port Melbourne.
Sport
Don't miss out on the headlines from Sport. Followed categories will be added to My News.
James Hird is up for a history lesson.
A framed painting of the Port Melbourne team of the century hangs in a room under the grandstand at North Port Oval where Hird and club analyst Tom Williams sit before training.
The Essendon great asks for a few of the Borough champions in portraiture to be pointed out to him.
That’s Norm Goss, after whom the grandstand is named and a man once described by ex-Port player Brendan Behan as “the town hall cleaner who ran the known world’’.
That’s Fred Cook, who kicked goals galore.
That’s Billy Swan, a two-time JJ Liston Trophy winner and Dane’s old man.
That’s big “Stretch’’ Aanensen, who also won two Listons and whose death two weeks ago hit his former teammates hard.
“That’s why we wore the black armbands,’’ Hird, Port’s director of coaching, nods.
On it goes, a gallery of VFA greats.
Hird appreciates Port Melbourne’s rich heritage and stature as a football club established in 1874.
“Seventeen premierships,’’ he says.
“Going back to the VFA days, I always thought Port and Williamstown were the two clubs that stood out. My grandfather (Allan Hird Snr) played at Williamstown, the arch rival.’’
Hird never played a game at the Port Melbourne ground but as Essendon’s senior coach he visited when its VFL team played the Borough.
Now he sees North Port Oval day and night, and its every view and every hue impress him. It’s as if tall city buildings are close enough to cast a shadow on the outer wing.
“You don’t realise how close we are to the CBD,’’ he says.
“When the boys are training, you shouldn’t take your eyes off them. But occasionally you glance up for that beautiful view.’’
Hird has been involved at Port since 2023, when his son Tom joined the Borough after being delisted by the Bombers.
As a parent, he says, he tried to be anonymous in the outer – no easy task given his accomplishments in the game. He recalls with a laugh how Frankston supporters on “the hill’’ noticed him one night and went the heckle.
Port coach Adam Skrobalak used him as a quiet sounding board. They spoke every second week and caught up from time to time.
“He was a good help to me,’’ Skrobalak, who relocated to Queensland at the end of last season, says.
“He was really strong on that we were heading in the right direction and it takes time, don’t rush the process due to outside noise – keep them going, keep teaching.’’
He says Hird had “such a calming feel about him’’.
*****
James Hird downplays his position at Port Melbourne, saying he merely “moves the cones’’ for senior coach Brendan McCartney and “pumps up the footies’’.
Late last season, he was sounded out – but not officially asked – about taking over from Skrobalak.
Two things ultimately led him to turn it down: his work as CEO of Euree Asset Management and the prospect of coaching Tom.
But he did urge Port Melbourne officials to go after McCartney, who was one of his assistants at Essendon in 2011 and more recently coached North Ballarat in the Ballarat league.
“My view was that ‘Macca’ would be the best person for the job,’’ Hird says. “With his teaching of the fundamentals of the game, I thought he’d be excellent for Port Melbourne. I wasn’t sure what he was doing but as it turned out he was quite excited about it.’’
Was it true he once said McCartney was one of the best development coaches in the country? Hird goes further, saying he’s among the best coaches.
“Kevin Sheedy was my coach, David Wheadon was an excellent coach, Danny Corcoran, Mark Williams, I coached with Simon Goodwin, Mark Thompson … and Brendan stands as equal as any of them,’’ he says.
He told Port he would “help out’’ McCartney. The appointments – McCartney as coach, Hird as director of coaching – were made even before the home-and-away season was done.
But Hird does much more than move the cones and put air in the balls. He attends all the training sessions, is on the match committee and runs the bench on match day.
At quarter breaks he gets busy on the board as McCartney comes down from the box. Are they co-coaches?
“It’s gone from doing not much to having a fair bit of a role,’’ Hird says. “I wouldn’t say we’re co-coaches. I have a fair input. But ‘Macca’ is the coach. He’s definitely the main man and I step in under that.’’
Former captain Toby Pinwill is now Port’s director of football, and with club CEO Sophie Williams identified Hird as a potential replacement for Skrobalak.
As Pinwill sees it, Hird and McCartney are “very much a partnership’’.
“They’ve got so much respect for each that if ‘Hirdy’ came in and said, ‘I’d like to do the talk today’ or ‘I reckon we play this bloke in this position today’, ‘Macca’ would say no worries,’’ he says.
“Brendan’s the coach. But ‘Hirdy’ is as senior an assistant as you could get.’’
Pinwill was impressed in his early discussions with Hird when he remarked how much he respected the competition. At age 17 he lined up for the ACT against the 1990 VFA representative team coached by Phil Cleary.
When Hird accepted the Port role a lot of people said he had an ulterior motive: it was a step towards regaining the Essendon coaching position he relinquished in 2015 in the prolonged fallout from the supplements saga.
He insists his only motive is to help the Port Melbourne players improve and for the club to again be successful after a modest few years in the post-Gary Ayres era.
“It’s not (about Essendon),’’ he says.
“It’s to help out Port. They’ve been good to Tom and I felt like I could make a difference here. To do something with your son is very special. This is a journey in itself, being part of Port Melbourne Football Club and trying to create a good football program where we can have some success and teach and help players learn. That’s the sole purpose of doing it.’’
Does he ever think of a return to coaching in the AFL?
“I’ve answered that a few times. My focus is working with the boys here. What are we, four wins, one draw and five losses? We’ve got a lot of work to do to make the most of this year and then how we set ourselves up for next year.’’
Hird had a small role with GWS in 2022, but his position at Port has immersed him in a club for the first time since he left the Bombers in a forest of headlines.
He says he missed the “whole environment’’.
“I didn’t think I’d enjoy it as much as I am,’’ he says.
“You realise why you love footy when you’re in and around a group of young guys, young people who want to get better, and a group of coaches who also want to get better.
“Everyone says coaching is a stressful job. And it is. But it’s also … when you’re doing it, you’re teaching people how to play and helping them get better … so it’s a very rewarding job as well.’’
For his part, Skrobalak has no doubt Hird could coach again in the AFL.
His great supporter Sheedy does too. He’s pleased to see his former captain in the VFL.
“It’s great for him,’’ Sheedy says. “From where he’s been and the difficulties he’s had in life, it’s good that he’s back into footy and coaching. It’s fantastic for him.’’
Could he coach in the AFL again? “James Hird can do anything,’’ Sheedy says.
Pinwill played under Ayres, who steered the Borough to the 2011 and ’17 premierships and grew deeply attached to the club. He was a life member when he left at the end of 2021.
Pinwill believes Hird is going through what Ayres did.
“They’ve had all these achievements with their footy but I reckon there’s an element of surprise almost of how much they enjoy their time at this level. It’s real football,’’ he says.
“He (Hird) fully loves it. He’s openly said that, about how much it’s giving him. It’s easy to frame it as, ‘I’m coming back and helping a club’. He frames it as, ‘I’m getting more out of this rather than the other way around’.’’
Hird’s regard for the VFL was apparent when CODE Sports contacted him to arrange an interview at North Port Oval.
He had a few questions of his own, all pertaining to the competition and its future. Will the reserves come back? Will the AFL support the “old’’ Victorian clubs, such as Port, Willy and Coburg? Does it recognise their importance as a means of giving players the chance to be drafted or play at a level beyond suburban football?
Hird particularly admires the commitment of the players, most of whom juggle football with work and study. He knows they could go elsewhere and receive more money for less commitment. Their efforts “don’t go unnoticed’’ and “they train their backsides off’’.
Pinwill suspects the Port players trained like Hird did when he entered league football in the early 1990s, rolling up at 5pm.
“The time they put in and how driven they are … in some ways the mindset our players have is actually closer to an AFL footballer when James Hird started than what an AFL footballer is now,’’ he says.
“He might be surprised at how much he sees in himself in our players and what it takes to be here. He sees what they have to do during the week and then go out and consistently beat AFL players.’’
Hird is also doing commentary and analysis for the Footy Furnace and Footy Classifield programs, which he thinks fits in well with his role at Port. “To dissect the AFL games … it overlaps with what I’m doing here,’’ he says.
Pinwill was at Port Melbourne when Hawthorn great and former Geelong and Adelaide coach Ayres arrived in 2008.
He thinks Hird has brought similar gravitas to the Borough.
“When I’m meeting people down the street or wherever and Port Melbourne comes up, they always used to bring up ‘Ayresy’. Now they’re bringing up James Hird and Brendan McCartney.
“Even people who don’t follow the VFL notice ‘Hirdy’ is down at Port Melbourne, which is great for us and great for the competition as well.’’
Originally published as ‘Fully loves it’: James Hird’s leap from a Bomber to a Borough
‘Plot thickens’: Tennis feud takes fresh twist
A tennis on-court row has taken another turn, this time off the court as the rivals traded barbs again in fiery social media posts.
AFL buys Waverley Park from Hawthorn
Hawthorn and the AFL have agreed to terms on a deal that will see the league own Waverley Park — and the Hawks will be well compensated. See the details here.