LEGAL advice provided to James Hird last year clearly was not the no-win, no-cost type.
That more than $640,000 worth of such advice is now the subject of a legal claim lodged by the Essendon coach in the Supreme Court is yet another truly bizarre development in the Bombers drugs saga.
Hird is seeking to have Essendon Football Club’s insurance company cover his own costs associated with taking ASADA to the Federal Court in 2014 for what he argued was unlawful practice, and also in appealing the initial decision which went against him. The appeal also ruled against Hird.
The insurance company has stated its policy with the Bombers covers executives in cases where they are defendants, not claimants.
As seemingly always, Hird’s legal advice is in conflict with another group’s legal advice.
If he keeps trying, one day he might actually score a win. Right now, he’d take a win anywhere, particularly in a court where he is none from two in the past 12 months, and on an AFL venue where he is two from 12 matches since early May.
Four seasons into his coaching career (he missed 2014 through AFL suspension), Hird has been no more successful than the man he replaced, Matthew Knights.
Both took the Bombers to the finals once, with Knights overseeing a 96-point loss, Hird a 62-point loss.
An AFL coach suing his club’s insurance company would normally be massive news, yet in the context of the Hird/Essendon drugs program debacle, it has rightly been consigned to the briefs.
In taking such action, Hird, though, is yet again providing those who control his future at Essendon with reason to question his future.
And some are.
Already annoyed, yet again, at public commentary by Hird last month when he went way outside club and AFL-imposed guidelines to not disparage the AFL, those people are again considering Hird’s future - no matter the assurances provided in two radio interviews in the past three weeks by Bombers chief executive Xavier Campbell that Hird would coach into 2016.
"Of course I think the AFL should take some blame for where this is at," Hird said last month in relation to the drugs program which involved 34 players under his watch in 2012 and which is now headed for a hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
He added: “There are certainly some people within the AFL industry that I have no time for — who I think are ordinary individuals and don’t speak the truth."
AFL not worried by Hird's 'ordinary individuals' crack
Also: "The biggest issue in this is that the truth was never the desired outcome or the truth got lost along the way.
“The truth from the start wasn’t what was sought and the people who have tried to speak the truth have been closed down and haven’t been allowed to talk about it. Or, a different form of the truth has been pushed out through the media."
Truth. It’s been a key public word for Hird since early 2013. In July of that year, he said: "There’s no person out there more than myself that wants the truth, that is trying to find the truth, that wants it out on the table."
Truth. A word also used by Hird after a stirring win by his team against Fremantle in April of 2013, a week before he was to be interviewed by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority.
"And (when) you know you've got truth on your side, you go hard. And when you get your opportunity, you tell the whole truth," Hird said.
"And when the truth comes out, I think I'll be in a very, very good position, and so will this football club.”
The truth is, Hird was prepared to spend more than $640,000 – of what he thought was going to be covered by the club's insurer – in legal actions which ultimately sought to shut down the entire ASADA case on a technicality.
That he’s now suing for that money may well be a dare to club officials to sack him. His lawyers were ready for that possibility late last year and are no doubt ready to go again.
Twitter: @barrettdamian
