JAMES Hird has hit back at"unfounded rumours" suggesting he would be ordered to stand down asEssendon coach this week.
Hird, like his club on Monday night,refuted the suggestion he would stand down as senior coach by Thursday, describingit as untrue.
He said he had grown accustomed tomistruths being told since the investigation into the club's supplement issuesbegan in February.
"I'm not shocked by anything inthis investigation or this process. There seems to be a lot of rumour and innuendothat has no fact to it," Hird said on Tuesday morning.
"If you track us through thelast six months there's no need to get frustrated … it's been from theAustralian Federal Police raiding my house to being sacked.
"There's been a lot ofunfounded rumours that we'll move through."
Essendon had already categoricallydenied Hird had been ordered to stand down.
Meanwhile, the timeline for aresolution to the saga remains unclear.
On a day of denials on Monday, the AFL was also forced to refute suggestions itwas preparing to strip the Bombers of premiership points or that AndrewDemetriou's absence in the US was having an adverse impact on the process.
The speculation about Hird's future emanated out of Adelaide, where formerCrows skipper Mark Ricciuto took to radio station Triple M to report theBombers coach had been given an ultimatum.
"I received a phone call earlier on from a man who would know, and saidthat his source, a very, very reliable source ... has said that if James Hirddoesn't resign by Thursday someone else might make the decision for him,"Ricciuto told his South Australian audience.
The club was swift to deny the claim.
"It's factually incorrect and categorically untrue," Essendonspokesman Justin Rodski told AFL.com.au on Monday night.
Such was the frenzy created by the radio story, Essendon was forced to issue astatement later on Monday night to all media describing Ricciuto's reporting as"baseless rumours."
"As a club we are incredibly frustrated by the decision of some sectionsof the media to report unfounded and untested gossip," the statement read.
Assistant coach Mark Thompson echoed the denial on Fox Footy's AFL 360program on Monday night.
"He won't stand down - I know that, and he shouldn't," Thompson said.
Hird has his engaged his own public relations and legal representatives, andindications are he is prepared for a legal fight if any such move was madeagainst him.
Thompson called for the whole saga to brought to a conclusion, but predictedthat might not be the case.
"We don't want anyone to go through this again. Football's crazy at themoment," he said.
"What's the next three years going to hold? It's going to be in and out ofcourt, it's stakeholders fighting with one another.
"Someone seriously needs to grab this whole situation and position it andget people working together again and respecting one another.
"People are going to just drop off footy if this keeps going.
"If we just drag it through courts the next couple of years, people won'tturn up."
The Bombers have dropped out of the top four after their 79-point loss toCollingwood on Sunday and Thompson conceded the result was due, in part, to thetoll exacted by the saga.
"To get the report handed down, these guys, to prepare for a game takes alot of work and takes a lot of concentration," he said.
"They were obviously distracted because their career is on the line.
"They're not happy.
"[Our poor form] is not so much a physical thing. I think it's a mentalthing."
Earlier, the AFL's deputy chief executive Gillon McLachlan denied the Leaguehad already made a decision on stripping premiership points, asflagged by Bombers legend Tim Watson.
"I think you're well ahead of the curve here," McLachlan said inanswer to a reporter's direct question.
"Obviously Andrew Dillon, the general counsel of the AFL and the head ofour integrity unit, is considering the report," he said.
"The first thing's first, to decide if there's any action to be taken.
"Separately, ASADA also will decide if the Bombers face specificanti-doping charges.
"If any action is to be taken, he (Dillon) will make a decision when it'sappropriate," McLachlan said.
"I'm not sure when that's going to be."
McLachlan also denied the absence of his boss was having any impact on theAFL's review of ASADA's findings.
Demetriou remains out of the country, and is due back in Melbourne onWednesday.
He is attending a global sports summit in Aspen, Colorado, where he was due toappear on an executive panel Monday US time discussing "profiting fromprofessional sports gambling," according to the Sports LeadershipInstitute's website.
"Going to America had no bearing on getting the right outcome in thisEssendon case," McLachlan said.
"If people don't think you can do both at the same time, they're missingthe point."
