Tim Watson has expanded on current studies about his strained relationship with James Hird, saying he holds no ill-will in direction of the previous Bombers coach however that the pair ‘don’t have a relationship’.
Watson additionally insisted he had nothing however one of the best pursuits of the Essendon Football Club in thoughts when he selected to not endorse Hird for the vacant teaching function on the finish of final yr.
The Herald Sun reported earlier this month that Hird and Watson haven’t been on talking phrases since Watson’s son Jobe was stripped of the 2012 Brownlow Medal for his function within the dietary supplements saga.
Watson and Hird performed collectively in Essendon’s 1993 premiership facet, and have been each named in Essendon’s Team of the Century in 1997.
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The Herald Sun’s report acknowledged it was now “the coldest of cold wars between the pair” and their relationship was “right now at least beyond repair”.
Speaking on SEN as a part of his new podcast collection, Watson was requested if their relationship was irreparable.
“I don’t have any ill-feeling towards James Hird. Absolutely none,” Watson stated.
“I’ve been in his company a number of times and we had a 1993 premiership lunch last year and he was there.”
However, Watson stopped wanting saying he and Hird have been pleasant, saying “we don’t have a relationship.”
“We’re not best friends and we were friendlier back in the day, but this whole thing happened, and I’ve reached out to him, I’ve reached out to Bomber (Mark Thompson, former Essendon coach) and I understand people are moving through this emotionally and mentally in their own time and in their own way and I respect that.”
He insisted that his remarks about Hird’s potential reappointment as Essendon coach had nothing to do along with his private relationship with Hird, and the whole lot to do with the path he thinks the Essendon Football Club ought to go in.
“When you have been a teammate of somebody and then you have to make a comment around something they might be doing because you hold a position in the media and you’ve got to have an opinion on these things, my opinion about him being the next coach of Essendon had nothing to do with what happened in that ASADA period,” Watson stated.
“It had nothing to do with that.
“I just didn’t think he was the right person for this time and the club needed to move forward and it was as simple as that.”
Asked by co-host Garry Lyon whether or not Essendon wanted to maneuver previous their previous heroes and historic membership figures which have been raised up as the answer to the membership’s 19-year-long streak with no finals victory, Watson stated: “Yeah, yeah, I do.”
“There was a lot of that, that we ‘just need to get Essendon people back’, and my answer to that was always no, no you don’t,” he stated.
“You need to always be conscious of the history and culture of your football club and those that represented your football club, but you always need to make the best decisions for your football club going forward.
“They may include Essendon people, but they may not include Essendon people.
“If you go back and look at the last successful period that Essendon had, it was getting Kevin Sheedy, a former Richmond person into the football club, and he changed the football club.”
Originally printed as Tim Watson denies studies he doesn’t communicate to James Hird
Source: www.dailytelegraph.com.au
