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Coach James Hird would be feeling the heat regardless of whether Essendon had launched a review of their floundering AFL season.
The Bombers have announced that former captain Neale Daniher will be involved in the review, which will focus on their football department.
“It doesn’t make me nervous – the thing that makes me nervous is that we’ve won five games,” said Hird.
“It’s not even nervous, but reality.
“The fact is, you win five games when you expect to do better, that’s going to put pressure on everyone and particularly the coach.”
Hird has welcomed the review and doubts it will recommend wholesale changes.
He is also adamant the season is not a write-off, despite only one win in their last nine games and heavy losses to St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs.
“There are a lot of young players we want to play and we want to make sure we know enough about players in terms of their futures with Essendon or not,” he said.
“We’d like to win a few games for our supporters.”
An obvious issue has been WADA’s decision to appeal against the AFL anti-doping tribunal verdict in favour of 34 current and past Essendon players.
That clearly has affected team morale.
But Hird said injuries had also played their part.
Heath Hocking will play his first senior game this season on Sunday against GWS in Sydney after recovering from a persistent groin injury.
“They did play with a great resilience and spirit in ’13 and ’14,” Hird said of how the team had dealt with the supplements saga before this season.
“We also had better luck with injuries than we’ve had this year.
“We’ve lost pretty much our whole inside midfield in Hocking, (David) Myers and (Jobe) Watson and that’s really hurt us.”
Despite the big losses to the Bulldogs and Saints, Hird insisted his team had also been competitive in other games over the last month.
“It’s a young team, we didn’t play well enough on the weekend and the players know that,” he said.
“But the spirit in the place is still very good.
“We have to translate it into the performance on the weekend.”
It remains unclear whether fan favourite Dustin Fletcher will play again this season, amid strong speculation his career is about to end.
Fletcher is struggling to overcome a groin injury, but did some light running at Friday training.
“If he’s underdone to the point where it’s going to embarrass him or it’s not going to help the team win, then we wouldn’t do it,” Hird said.
“But we’re hoping we’ll get him to a point physically where he’ll get through a game and play well.
“That’s what we’d like to do.”
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