Sacked Podcast: How Mark ‘Choco’ Williams was offered Essendon coaching job
Mark ‘Choco’ Williams says he attended James Hird’s wedding and considered him a “very good friend”. The Bombers legend perhaps had other ideas as he chased the Essendon coaching job in 2010.
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Mark Williams was sensationally offered the Essendon job that eventually went to Matthew Knights in the 2007 Grand Final week.
And the Port Adelaide premiership coach has revealed he offered Essendon a succession plan with James Hird in the contentious selection process that saw the prodigal son return.
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Williams never officially coached another club apart from Port Adelaide but had two near-misses at Essendon and at one stage felt he had the St Kilda job handed to Alan Richardson.
In retrospect he would have been the better choice given Richardson and Knights were sacked and Hird’s tenure was embroiled in the supplements saga.
Williams was midway through the selection process and was flying home after being interviewed by the Essendon committee when Hird made clear on Fox Footy he was likely to take on the role.
But his first overture from the club where he was previously an assistant coach under Kevin Sheedy came after he coached the Power into the 2007 Grand Final against Geelong.
“St Kilda were certainly trying to get me and Essendon, the week before the 2007 Grand Final (Dons CEO) Peter Jackson offered me the job and I said, “We need to wait”.
“And that week he announced Matthew Knights as the coach and I just couldn’t believe it … Couldn’t believe it.”
“I have spoken to people who know Mark Thompson, He thought he was going to coach there as well. (Essendon said) ‘we want you to be the coach’. I was thinking (waiting) was the respectful thing to do.
“I have no idea what happened anyway but that’s a bit of history.”
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In 2010 Hird was hired as senior coach over Williams, Dean Laidley and Alan Richardson, with Hird initially apply for a senior assistant role.
Williams says now he suggested the club secure Simon Goodwin, Dean Wallis and Sean Wellman, who all ended up at the club.
“It is really interesting that one because I went to a three-hour interview where I gave them my heart and soul, they then brought me back for another three-hour interview where they wanted me to answer all these questions. It was extensive, lots of questions, I am basically saying all these things should happen,” Williams said.
“I rang James Hird up, ‘James, I will do this for two or three years and you can take over’.
“Now remembering that James and I are very good friends, I went to his wedding, and unfortunately he never said to me that things were happening in the background.
“I was thinking that I was going to get that job, I got on a plane and by the time I got home from the plane flight of the second (interview, Hird had the job).
“I actually said that to them in the interview … ‘Am I wasting my time here because this is what I am hearing’.
“They said, ‘No. That’s not (the case)’.”
Richardson then secured the St Kilda role in late 2013 after initially refusing to be interviewed, leapfrogging Williams who believed the role was his.
“There are a lot of near-misses. I was in the last three for Roosy’s job at Melbourne and I must have been close. Roosy did an amazing job there.
“I thought I had the St Kilda job. I said, “Look, you can’t pay me the $1.6 million Roosy is getting, I know you haven’t got much money, I have won a premiership and my record is better than Roosy’s.
“If you are thinking you can’t pay me the money then I want a five-year contract and that is fair.
“(Football director) Andrew Thompson rang me and said, “Listen, we can’t go with five, can you negotiate and let’s put some incentives in there. I said I am in.
“(He said) Great, I am taking that to the board. That’s when I thought I have got the job. I got rang at nine o'clock the next morning, no, we are going with someone else.”
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Originally published as Sacked Podcast: How Mark ‘Choco’ Williams was offered Essendon coaching job
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