Hird last man standing from Bomber divide
Essendon was a club divided as its leaders sat shoulder to shoulder to tackle doping claims.
The agitator among its ranks was coach James Hird.
Hird sat beside his chairman, David Evans, nodding grimly throughout a February 2013 press conference as the club announced it was turning to the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority for help.
Essendon had learned of some "slightly concerning" details about its 2012 player supplement program, Mr Evans said.
"We want some experts to help us," he told the media throng.
Hird now says he sat there with the proverbial gun to his head.
This week in the Federal Court, Hird finally laid bare his vehement disagreement with Essendon's handling of the doping scandal.
He did not believe the club was guilty of using performance-enhancing drugs.
He did not agree with the club's decision to volunteer itself to ASADA.
"I was asked by the Essendon Football Club not to shirk the issue," is the way Hird explained his duplicity.
"I was told it would be better for the club if we went along this path."
Hird sat through the press conference, he said, because both AFL and Essendon bosses had told him to.
According to Hird, Essendon received a tip-off from the then-AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou on February 4, 2013, the day before the club went public with its fears at the press conference.
Demetriou's then-deputy and eventual successor, Gillon McLachlan, told the Bombers he believed they were drug cheats at a meeting at AFL headquarters just hours before Essendon went public with the claims.
"McLachlan's view was that we'd taken performance-enhancing drugs, and that it would go better for the club if it came forward in a proactive way," Hird said.
"He thought it was a good idea if I sat at the press conference, and he thought it was a very good idea for the look of the club and my reputation."
Hird disagreed.
He felt the Bombers had done nothing wrong.
"I didn't believe the players had taken performance-enhancing drugs. I hadn't seen it. I wasn't aware of it," Hird told the court this week.
He based that belief on the word of long-serving club doctor Bruce Reid.
"Bruce Reid said `There's no evidence of that. I haven't seen it. I don't think that's true'," Hird told the court.
"I'd always had a lot of faith in Bruce. He was the one who signed off on all the supplements and he said it hadn't happened."
Mr Evans and Essendon chief executive Ian Robson weren't prepared to put the same level of faith in Dr Reid.
According to Hird, they hoped to curry favour with both the league and ASADA by self reporting and offering to co-operate with the probe.
Hird didn't like it and told them so.
"I disagreed with what Mr Evans was going to say the morning he said it," he told the court.
"But I was told by the club, by David Evans and Ian Robson, that we should co-operate with ASADA and with the AFL, because if we co-operated it would go well for our players.
"The players are the most important thing and I followed David Evans' and Ian Robson's lead."
And so Hird came to sit beside Mr Evans and Mr Robson to present a united front to the footballing public.
"We certainly don't want to be sitting here, talking about this," Hird said at the time.
"We want to get this investigation started. We want to get it done. We want to come out with a clean bill of health."
Hird went on to say he took responsibility for what had happened in Essendon's football department.
It's a statement that flies in the face of Hird's court testimony this week.
Eighteen months on and Hird is the sole survivor at Essendon among the trio of leaders who sat shoulder to shoulder at that press conference.
He has survived internal Essendon politics, a 12-month AFL-imposed ban and now seems likely to survive the club's court battle with the anti-doping body.
Whether Justice John Middleton deems the ASADA and AFL investigation into the Bombers legal or illegal, Hird will be "absolutely" back in charge of Essendon's on-field endeavours next season, according to new Bombers chairman Paul Little.
Hird's AFL ban will expire at the end of this month.
"It's a very positive 2015 that we're looking forward to," Mr Little said.
For all his friction with the previous club hierarchy, Hird said he enjoys a strong relationship with Mr Little.
"There's been a lot of silly things said in the paper, but I fully support Paul and his board and they've been terrific of late," he told reporters outside court.
With Mr Demetriou and ex-ASADA boss Aurora Andruska also in new roles, Hird shapes as one of the last men standing from the scandal.
