Essendon documentary: James Hird almost missed 2000 preliminary with daughter Stephanie in hospital
James Hird has revealed in a new documentary he was nearly forced to miss Essendon’s 2000 preliminary final as his daughter faced a life-threatening medical issue.
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Essendon players made a vow to stop singing the Bombers’ team song after their wins throughout their remarkable 2000 season until they won the premiership.
After the heartbreak of the 1999 preliminary final loss to Carlton, Bombers greats have opened up about the bid for redemption the following season which led to Essendon’s 16th and most recent flag in the club documentary which begins on Fox Footy and Kayo on Tuesday night.
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And former superstar captain and ex-coach James Hird detailed the difficulty of being in hospital with his daughter Stephanie as she faced a life-threatening medical issue the following year in the hours leading up to the 2000 preliminary final.
Hird said he was weighing up whether to be at his daughter’s bedside or play in the cutthroat final against the Blues when coach Kevin Sheedy joined the Hird family in hospital in the middle of the night.
The Bombers had lost the preliminary final to Carlton in 1999 in dramatic fashion when a Dean Wallis turnover cost the minor premiers in a major upset, paving way for North Melbourne to win the cup the following week.
Essendon champion Matthew Lloyd said the players were ordered to watch North triumph in the in the ’99 decider and made a decision to not celebrate home and away wins until they went all the way the following season.
“We lose the unlosable in ‘99 … and Kevin Sheedy sends the message out the club has purchased 40 Grand Final tickets and you are all going to watch,” Lloyd said.
“There were all Carlton supporters and North Melbourne supporters all grabbing their throats and saying you have choked, you should be here and you rare not.
“It was hard watching. We walked out of the ground and you can imagine what we were copping as we were walking out.
“We didn’t sing the club sing for any victory (the following year), there was only one win that was going to do it for us and that was the Grand Final.”
Lloyd said a meeting with Sheedy and assistant coach Robert Shaw at a city restaurant on the night of the Roos’ 99 premiership win set the tone when Shaw named the four teams they had to beat (Carlton, North Melbourne and Melbourne) to triumph the following season.
“It was an amazing coaching performance where they changed our mindset from dwelling on it for a month and saying ‘OK, the 2000 season starts now’,” Lloyd said.
The Bombers brought a pre-season training camp forward and lost only one game (to Western Bulldogs) for the year in one of the most dominant seasons of all time, eventually thrashing Melbourne by 60 points in the decider.
The eight-part documentary series called ‘The Bombers: Stories of a Great Club’ will be screened every Tuesday night for one month, and details the club’s proud history heading into its 150 year anniversary next season.
In it, Brownlow Medal winner Hird explains how he was told on the training track the day before the 2000 preliminary final that his daughter was seriously ill.
“I remember at 2am on Saturday morning before the prelim when Steph was in intensive care, they had just done the lumbar puncture to test the spinal fluid and everyone was pretty distraught at what could possibly happen,” Hird said.
“And ‘Sheeds’ turned up. In the back of my mind I knew we had to play the preliminary final the next day against Carlton and knowing the year before we lost to Carlton. There was a lot of pressure on us to play well and to win.
“I was pretty undecided whether I was going to play or not, your daughter is in a life-threatening situation.
“Sheeds came in and sat with us for an hour-and-a-half and then before he left he said ‘I don’t care what you want to do, whether you play or don’t want to play. Your daughter’s life is much more important than football’.
“That to me, back in the moment, it felt like a selfless thing for him to say. His career was riding on me playing or not playing as well, as captain of the club.
“Fortunately, Steph came out of the coma three hours before the game and I went to the game and played.”
Fellow hipster: Why Andy Murray can spur on broken Bomber
Leading sports medicine physician Dr Peter Brukner has revealed Michael Hurley’s hip surgery is the same procedure that helped get three-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray back playing elite tennis.
As revealed by News Corp, Essendon veteran Hurley has undergone hip joint replacement surgery in a bid to extract another year out of his AFL career.
Describing Hurley’s hip operation as “unusual”, Dr Brukner was not aware of any AFL footballer returning from this type of surgery but said it gave the Bomber a chance to get back playing football again.
Hurley failed to play a game this year and lost more than 10kg after he was floored by a serious infection in his hip.
Dr Brukner said the surgery had been successful to get Murray back on court.
“It’s the same procedure as Andy Murray had a couple of years ago,” Dr Brukner told SEN.
“Remember he had initial hip surgery that wasn’t that successful and then a year later he had this resurfacing.
“He was tempted to do it because of the experience of Bob Bryan, one of the US doubles players. It resurrected his career and he recommended it to Andy Murray and Andy Murray has managed to get back to playing at the elite level.
“It took him a while, he initially played doubles then singles and a few setbacks and so on but he eventually made it.
“I’m not aware that any AFL footballer has come back after this surgery but it’s an unusual surgery so that doesn’t rule him out.
“It certainly gives him a chance but more importantly it certainly takes away that chronic pain that he has been suffering for a number of months.”
Dr Brukner detailed the procedure Hurley underwent, describing it as a resurfacing and not as significant as a full hip replacement.
“Technically he has had a hip replacement but it is not your typical hip replacement that older people have from arthritis,” Dr Brukner said.
“It’s what we call a resurfacing, or a Birmingham procedure.
“The hip is a ball and socket joint, so you have got the ball which is the head of the thigh bone and the socket is a socket in the hip bone.
“When you do a full hip replacement you remove the whole top of the femur bone, the thigh bone, whereas in this resurfacing what they do is they just remove the damaged part at the end of ball if you like and replace it with a metal cap so it’s not as significant a procedure as the full hip replacement.”
Dr Brukner said Hurley faced a slow rehabilitation process over “three or four months” but there was no certainty over his playing future.
“It’s certainly no certainty but it is a possibility,” Dr Brukner said.
“As I said he would probably be the first AFL player to do it but the demands of elite tennis with someone like Andy Murray is probably not that dissimilar to the demands of AFL.
“He is certainly a chance. His age probably doesn’t help him, he is 31 so that’s a bit of a problem.
“But the main thing from his point of view is that he has got rid of his pain and his whole life has probably changed as a result of it.
“So that’s the big attraction for Michael and if he can get back and play football that’s a bonus.”
Hurley’s drastic weight loss after severe infection
Essendon veteran Michael Hurley has had a hip joint replaced in an ambitious bid to squeeze another year out of his 193-game career.
The popular Bomber, who turns 32 in June, lost more than 10kg this year and failed to play a game after battling a severe leg infection.
Hurley was bedridden for weeks and was hospitalised twice as he struggled to shake the debilitating bug – a condition that has resulted in people losing limbs.
The joint replacement surgery three weeks ago was seen as his only hope of playing football at AFL level again.
“The operation basically gives him a chance,” Essendon general manager of football Josh Mahoney told the Herald Sun. “Without the operation, he wouldn’t have been a chance.”
Hurley was back at the club last week and has begun his arduous rehabilitation program in the pool.
The Bombers would not put a time frame on his against-the-odds efforts to return to full-time training or senior football.
They said the two-time All Australian was now “pain free” for the first time since the injury flared at the start of this year.
“Michael has been managing a degenerative hip for many years and after the infection earlier this year it became quite symptomatic with everyday life, not just playing football,” Mahoney said.
“It got to the stage where for him to give himself the best chance later in life, and also to give him the best chance to return to playing AFL, that was the best course of action really.
“Recovery will be slow and Michael and the club’s main priority is his long-term hip health.
“Having said that, the goal is to restore normal hip function and – all going well – resume his AFL career.
“He is now walking around pain-free, which he hasn’t experienced for a long period of time.”
Joint replacement surgery in the hip involves removing damaged or diseased sections of the body and replacing them with artificial parts. It is more common in retired athletes and elder people.
Hurley, who is contracted for next year, played his last game in round 18, 2020, and he remains seven matches shy of his 200-game milestone.
The loyal defender stuck with the Bombers after being banned for the entire 2016 season as part of the Essendon 34 and the club’s supplement saga.
Mahoney said it had been another hard year on Hurley.
“To see from when he first got the infection and the amount of weight that he lost and it was pretty tough for everyone to look at that stage,” Mahoney said.
He said it remained unclear how Hurley contracted the infection.
“It’s hard to track,” he said. “There are different ways, it can be a cut, it can be a blister, he had some dental work done, it can be an operation.”
Mahoney said Hurley was already feeling better about his comeback efforts.
“It is going to be a slow recovery but it will be based on the different stages he goes through,” Mahoney said.
“First of all, it is just about being mobile and working in the pool and walking and then gradually up to running.
“So it will just be a step-by-step process, working through that and then eventually he will start training.
“We will keep assessing it along the way.”
Aside from Hurley’s operation, the Bombers expect Harrison Jones (foot surgery) and Zach Reid (back stress fracture) to be the only other players facing a delayed start to the pre-season.
“The expectation at this stage is we will have Harry Jones still recovering, slightly delayed and Zach Reid slightly delayed,” Mahoney said.
“But apart from those two and Hurls, everyone else will be in full training from the start which is really pleasing.
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