Essendon already internally at each other's throats. What a shame!
Hiring opens old wounds at Dons Mark Hawthorne
October 8, 2010 JAMES Hird's first decision as senior coach of Essendon - to re-hire former football manager and close friend Danny Corcoran - has opened some old wounds.
Corcoran was a central player in the unravelling of the club's salary-cap breaches of the 1990s, and a number of past Essendon board members and executives have told The Age they are furious with the decision to reappoint him to the club's football department.
''If I was still on the board, I would vote against him being back there,'' said former club director Don McKenzie.
Another former club director said: ''I think the fact that Danny Corcoran has been re-employed shows just how out of touch the current board and administration is with the club's own history.''
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/hiring-opens-old-wounds-at-dons-20101007-169sc.htmlAnd Rohan Connolly is comparing Essendon now to like-ish Richmond post-1982....The key figures of the past, with a sense of entitlement, are determined to have their public two bob's worth. Frankly, at the moment, they need to put a sock in it. The latest sooking concerns events 13 years old. Time to build a bridge, folks.
The back-biting and wielding of personal hatchets became an entrenched part of Essendon's culture even during Kevin Sheedy's successful 27-year reign. So much so that in the end, the coach was spending as much time shoring up his own support at board level as actually coaching the team.
Those stirring the pot would do well to remember what became of Richmond post-1982 - the Tigers' seventh grand final appearance in 16 seasons. As the club's fortunes faded, many of the group involved with that golden era became a sort of de facto Greek chorus, the go-to men for any comment on the latest Tigers disaster. They enjoyed the taste to the point they ended up more closely resembling those grumpy old men Statler and Waldorf hanging off the balcony in The Muppet Show.
It was funny by the end. But for Richmond, a disaster.
And it's exactly that sort of indulgence the less successful Essendon of today simply can't afford if it is to have any chance of restoring its tarnished reputation as a power of the AFL.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/bombers-need-to-put-a-stop-to-the-war-of-words-20101007-169sd.html
