Damian Barrett Updates On James Hird's Current Status

He spoke on Triple M.


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Former Essendon coach James Hird is out of care, but is reportedly losing contact with some of his friends and football colleagues, according to Triple M's Damian Barrett.

Speaking on Dead Set Legends in Adelaide, Barrett said Hird was released from care around three weeks ago. 

"Where he is physically - he's out of the care that he is receiving, he's been out now for probably three weeks," he told Triple M.

"He's become very withdrawn...people who have known him for a very long time and who are friends of him have been regularly saying, even recently, that the responses to their messaging of him is just nonexistent from James.

"I feel that they are saying until James chooses to want to respond to them and to want to get himself back into the AFL, should he choose to do that, then nothing's going to happen on that front.

"I think we're often ill equipped to deal with (incidents like this), because clearly what happened to him in the early parts of this year when he had that medical incident - which was a serious one for him to be cared for at the highest levels of medical profession - we're in an area where we don't really understand as outsiders."

Barrett said the door was open for a return to Essendon - or football - in some capacity, though it would be coming from a long way back.

"No one's stopping him from going back to Essendon or going back to the game," he said.

He suggested Hird could take responsibility for his role in the Essendon saga, as a means of helping him recuperate and enter his next stage of life.

"In terms of where he is in footy, I still feel that he needs to take more responsibility for what he did."

"Until he gets his head around what happened there nothing's going to happen of any positive nature from a footy perspective."

18 February 2017




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