Hird prepares to play the long game

Waiting ... James Hird is expected to be banned for 12 months. Source: Quinn Rooney / Getty Images

IF IT was the end, as it appears to be for James Hird for the next 12 months, it ended in remarkable scenes.

It wasn't a fairytale - how can it be? - but an exhilarating end to a difficult week and a torturous season.

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Essendon's penalties are expected to be announced today and not even the most hopeful of Bombers people - officials and fans - think they will play finals this year.

There was a look of resignation on plenty of faces on Saturday night.

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Chat live with Robbo from 11.30am on Monday

After the adrenalin release at the final siren, where the players thrust their arms in the air as if it was a premiership win, there was a look of dejection on their faces.

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In the rooms, the players invited Hird into the circle and together they belted out the theme song.

Then Hird did what everyone hoped he would: he opened up at his press conference.

Tellingly, he said he would love to coach the club after a suspension.

It was always thought Hird would give the game away if he was suspended, that it would be too difficult to coach again if he accepted a penalty that meant he accepted guilt to an array of AFL charges.

Hird has wondered, would everyone believe in him again?

It is yet to be announced if he will continue legal action against the AFL and its senior players, Andrew Demetriou and Gillon McLachlan, but if he does he will almost certainly be stood down as coach.

If he's going to be suspended anyhow, people close to him are urging him to fight the AFL to a) reveal the truth as he knows it; and b) fight "99 per cent" of the charges against him. Hird was locked in talks with his legal team on Sunday.

On Saturday night, the seriousness of the situation was initially swamped by the emotion of victory.

Very quickly, however, it became very real that nothing would be the same again.

For club doctor Bruce Reid, who is also charged by the AFL with bringing the game into disrepute, it was goodbye. It is thought it was Reid's final game as club doctor, a role he started in 1981 under Kevin Sheedy.

As players, officials and friends gathered around him, Reid shed tears.

And so did Hird.

Assistant coach Mark Thompson said he did not know what was coming for him or the club.

"I've not spoken to anyone," Thompson said.

A brief discussion about the future, about whether he could step in as coach if Hird was suspended, elicited some hope.

"It's too hard to answer," he said. "Run training for a couple of months? I reckon they would've asked already."

He described the feeling in the rooms as "outstanding".

"Reidy was really emotional, so was Hirdy. It's hard to explain. How would it be to be Hirdy? Just the week he had, and then the player players came out and played for him like that. It was unbelievable."

Hird's press conference was unbelievable for many reasons, not least because it felt like we were listening to a condemned man who believed himself to be innocent.

For the first time, he said he would accept responsibility for what happened at the club at the end of 2011 and throughout 2012.

Asked if he had regrets, he said: "Do I have regrets ... I certainly regret certain aspects of what happened in 2012."

It was his first public utterance of remorse and he promised more would come when it was decided what would happen to the club and himself.

One day soon enough he will talk about his one-time trusted sports scientist Stephen Dank.

Dank continues to make contact with at least one of his former colleagues, and expresses great confidence of winning any legal battle.

But he's been told it's not about legal battles. It's about the players wanting to know one thing from Dank, and that is the truth about what they were injected with.

Hird wants the truth found and heard, and that's why Sunday was spent deciding whether to continue to take on the AFL.

If it was about him being suspended and the club keeping premiership points and draft picks and the players being in the clear, then Hird said he would do it.

His immediate future will be known on Monday, but his long-term future seems more assured.

"I want to come back if I am suspended," he said.

"I love the players, I love the people I work with and this year has brought us close together."

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