While still waiting for a decision from the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the #AFL decided to draw its own line in the sand on the eve of the 204 finals series, not willing to have the saga hang over another season with all the negative headlines and associated brand damage.
Essendon was fined two million dollars, withdrawn from the final series and Hird was handed a one year suspension – not for doping but for failures in governance oversight.
While the past two weeks have seen a clean out with a chairman, numerous board members, the CEO and coach all departing, there is a hope at head office at least that the past decade of trauma and division might finally be over.
Through it all the club has proven to be remarkably resilient, riding out the financial strain and reaching 88,000 club members.
To imagine that all the loyal supporters agree that James Hird is the man to take the club back to its glory days would be a folly, given he is synonymous with its darkest period, but many believe he and the 34 suspended players were wronged…
…and now is the moment when their truth wins, when justice is finally delivered.
In an exclusive interview given to the ABC News Channel only days after CAS delivered its guilty verdict Hird said he knew he was the scapegoat, but it was the players who were the victims.
His sense of responsibility for the life changing impact on the players to whom he had promised so much was palpable – there was shame, guilt and sadness. 
It was deeply personal, too, knowing he was the third generation of Hirds whose lives revolved around the Essendon community with the team at its heart.
His father Allan Hird junior played at the club, his grandfather Allan Hird senior was both player and president, an inaugural inductee into the club’s Hall of Fame.
These are some of the answers to the question that has been asked frequently this past week, why would James Hird go back?
Back in 2016 in front of a live audience at the Ethics Centre in Sydney, Hird told the ABC there would be a time ‘ in the future’ when he’d like to go back to the club.
“I'd love to go back. The Essendon Football Club is a huge part of my life.”
“I'd love to go back. The Essendon Football Club is a huge part of my life.”
It’s not just the clean out and absence of a coach at Essendon that might make Hird consider a return, but the departure of the current AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan who is counting down his last days in office means AFL HQ is also entering a new era.
At the height of the blackest day frenzy McLachlan was on the rise. He was deputy to then CEO Andrew Demetriou and had been put in charge of dealing with the Essendon affair.
There was a widely held view inside the club that they were being singled out by the AFL to make a point, a scapegoat was needed – Essendon was the team, Hird was the face.
There were allegations of almost weekly calls from Demetriou to senior government officials in the Prime Minister's department, there was pressure on ASADA to reach a quick resolution, even suggestions that the players be protected as much as possible.
Hird was asked by the AFL to front a press conference and take responsibility. In the 2016 interview he recalls being told two things.
“That it would be in my best interests to be there, and it would be in my best interests to take responsibility,” he said in the 2016 interview.
“Then I was also told I couldn’t say the players hadn’t taken performance enhancing drugs. That was my big thing, I was quite happy to go into the press conference, but I wanted to…state that we hadn’t taken performance enhancing drugs because I was of the belief we hadn’t.
“And I was told I couldn’t say that.” By whom? “Gil McLachlan said I couldn’t say that. He said his belief was that they had.”
(Thread 3, to follow with a view to the future)
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