Essendon fined $20,000 for umpire contact, Jake Melksham backs James Hird as Bombers coach, Nathan Broad to West Coast, John Longmire confirms meeting with Tasmania over coaching job

A second AFL club has been fined a five-figure sum after repeated instances of umpire contact this season.

Elsewhere, John Longmire has carefully opened up on his latest meeting with a club searching for a senior coach, while the last man standing from the Essendon drugs saga is backing James Hird. The latest footy news and updates in AFL Daily!

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BOMBERS FINED FIVE-FIGURE SUM FOR UMPIRE CONTACT

Essendon has become the latest club to be fined $20,000 for continued umpire contact this season, with the AFL revealing their punishment on Thursday evening.

Young guns Angus Clarke and Sullivan Robey were charged with ‘Careless Contact with an umpire’ in the club’s harrowing 15-goal loss to Brisbane last Sunday.

“As it’s Essendon’s fifth instance of ‘Careless Contact with an umpire’ in the 2026 AFL Season, the AFL has sanctioned the club $20,000. The sanction will be excluded from the club’s soft cap,” a league statement read.

“In the event there are any subsequent umpire contact incidents, potential fines will be at the AFL’s discretion.”

Previous offences from Bombers players came from Jye Caldwell (Round 6), Zach Merrett (Round 10), Robey (Round 13 and 18), and Clarke (Round 18).

Essendon are the second club fined this year for the indiscretion, following Gold Coast.

LAST MAN STANDING FROM BOMBERS DRUGS SAGA BACKS HIRD HIRE

The final active player from the infamous Essendon 34 has backed James Hird’s bid to return to AFL coaching.

Jake Melksham, who was one of the players suspended for the 2016 season after the CAS ruling on the Bombers supplements saga, began his career at Windy Hill including four seasons under Hird.

The 34-year-old also played alongside Essendon president and search panel chair Andrew Welsh.

“Andrew Welsh is a good friend and an old teammate, I know he’ll make the right call on who he thinks is the right person, and he probably won’t succumb to external noise,” Melksham told AAP’s Oliver Caffrey.

“But if it’s Hirdy and Hirdy wants to do it, then yeah, I support that.”

Hird served a one-year suspension during 2014 but returned for a second chance at the Bombers for the 2015 season, leaving before it ended with the club languishing at 5-14.

Melksham revealed he hadn’t spoken to Hird since his exit at that time.

“I actually saw Hirdy … I hadn’t seen him for 11 years since his press conference,’’ Melksham said.

“It was really good to see him, give him a hug and see how he’s going.

“It was a little bit strange and a bit bizarre, but we had a chat and he’s in a positive space.

“If he wants to do it and they think he’s the man, then go for it.”

He added: “As a past player and an onlooker now, I haven’t been at the club for 11 years.

“I just want them to start to do well and have some sort of positive outlook and some hope.”

EAGLE ‘LOVES’ TIGER CHASE

Richmond premiership player Liam Baker has backed current club West Coast’s chase of his former teammate Nathan Broad.

Broad is keen to finish his career at home in WA after 11 seasons at Punt Road, and would add valuable experience to a young and improving Eagles side, or join as an assistant coach.

He would re-join ex-Tigers Baker, Jack Graham and Tylar Young plus former Tigers assistant and interim coach Andrew McQualter, and Baker would love to get the band back together.

“Broady’s a close mate, and we’ve played a lot of footy together. I know his game really well, and I think he would help us a lot,” Baker told Triple M Perth.

“His leadership, just his understanding of role and demanding of his teammates would be great for a team like us and where we’re at.

“I’ve had a few conversations with him, and he’s keen to come back, whether it’s playing or coaching, and I’ll leave that up to the club, but we’d love him at West Coast, that’s for sure. He’d be a great asset.”

LONGMIRE CONFIRMS TASSIE ‘FACT-FINDING MISSION’

Tasmania coaching candidate John Longmire has described his latest meeting with the Devils as a “fact-finding mission from both sides”, but remains unsure if he wants to be the club’s inaugural coach.

CODE Sports journalist Jon Ralph earlier this week reported on Fox Footy’s On The Couch that Longmire met with Tasmania again last week. The Swans premiership coach is one of three candidates for the Tassie gig, alongside former senior coaches Ken Hinkley and Nathan Buckley.

Speaking on Fox Footy’s AFL 360 on Wednesday night, Longmire confirmed the Tassie catch-up.

“I spoke to them. I’d describe it as a fact-finding mission from both sides,” he told AFL 360.

“We had a discussion and I’d generally describe it as a fact-finding mission.”

Asked by Gerard Whateley if the conversation had helped him confirm whether he wanted to be a senior coach again, Longmire said: “I’ve been coaching, in another sense, for the job I’ve got here at the Swans. I’ve been doing that in a corporate sense for the last 18 months. So I haven’t really stopped, I’ve just been doing it in a different way, which I’ve enjoyed.

“Whether that ends up being at an AFL club or not coaching players, we’ll have to wait and see.

“What I’m determined to do is be the best I can be at whatever I do. I’ve been trying to do that since I’ve stopped coaching at the Swans, I’m trying to do that to the best of my ability now and what happens in the future, I’ll try and do the best I can at whatever that is.”

Asked if that could be as the inaugural Devils coach, Longmire said: “Not sure, Gerard. Not sure yet.”

SWANN BACKS VETERAN UMP AFTER ‘BLUE’, ‘IRRITATING’ RULE HERE TO STAY

AFL football operations boss Greg Swann has declared the polarising ‘stand’ rule is here to stay, insisting players have adjusted promptly and efficiently despite frustration from fans and commentators.

The stand rule, which has sparked consistent criticism, was introduced in 2021 to stop players from moving laterally on the mark and to open up the play.

Hawks star Jack Ginnivan benefited from it against Carlton on Saturday night, with umpire Matt Stevic penalising Blue Adam Cerra for running off the mark – despite seemingly starting to call play-on when Ginnivan looked to handball to a teammate.

Ginnivan this week told the Ball Magnets podcast the stand rule “sort of just ruins the game” and is “the worst rule the AFL has”, adding: “It’s just so confusing for players and umpires to adjudicate, it just doesn’t need to be this rule and create a 50m and you just can kick a goal.”

Speaking on Fox Footy’s AFL 360 on Wednesday night, Swann said Stevic “made a blue and the result of that is he should’ve reset the mark”. But Swann said Stevic had owned his error and shouldn’t be judged on it alone.

“I’ve heard the debate around the stand rule, but he (Stevic) called it because he (Ginnivan) faked to play on – that rule has been in for five years. He just got it wrong … He’s admitted it, put his hand up and said ‘I got it wrong’,” Swann told AFL 360.

“Can I just say he’s umpired 12 Grand Finals, he’s a star of umpiring. He’s made one blue and I don’t think we should hang him for that.”

Swann said, overall, the league was happy with how the stand rule was being interpreted and implemented, adding it was here to stay. He said players had adapted “really well” to the rule, highlighted by the fact umpires penalise players, on average, less than five times a round for infringing.

But asked if the 50m penalty was the right punishment for violating the stand rule, Swann said: “That might be debatable, because it is a hard penalty.

“But the rule itself was brought in to allow the player with the ball to move on quickly, hit the 45s … we’re happy with how that’s going.

“I know it irritates a lot of people, but we’re happy with the rule and there’s going to be a few free kicks but … there was only six last round – it’s not many.”

The AFL earlier this year introduced an anti-taunting rule in a bid to prohibit unsportsmanlike actions, like ruffling an opponent’s head. Docker Luke Ryan and Swan Dane Rampe were both penalised for taunting in last week’s Fremantle-Sydney clash, with Swann saying the league was comfortable with how they were officiated.

Asked if the AFL would look at an “all-encompassing taunting rule” or leave the rule as is, Swann said: “At the moment we’ll leave it as is. The reason being is when you do touch someone’s head, we didn’t have to change rules or do anything. We just said it’s ‘high contact’. If you pat someone on the bum, that’s not a free kick normally, but if you get touched or whacked on the head that can certainly be deemed as ‘high’.

“It’s easy to say we do these rules because ‘it has an effect in community footy’, but it does. Taunting rubbing heads and stuff in junior footy, we just think, is an absolute no-no. They mimic what happens at the top, so we brought that in.”

Swann said the possibility of going back to a three-umpire system wasn’t on the agenda, nor was the prospect of full-time whistleblowers. He also said the list of 44 umpires was adequate but conceded the depth can get tested if there are a few injuries.

Asked if the current AFL umpire structure was adequate for the demands of the game’s most professional league, Swann said: “Yeah I think it is.

“Everything is a debate around umpiring. If I sit here now and say the field umpires run at about 94 per cent accuracy, people will go ‘I don’t believe it’. But even in this instance, I think the umpiring on the weekend, certainly the games on Thursday and Friday – there’s this one mistake, which was a major mistake, but that’s the highlight – there was no real effect by any of the umpiring.

“They’re going to a designated facility at Windy Hill now, we start that from next week. It’s got better meeting rooms, tech facilities for all the things we can do with interstate umpires and it will allow them to have more on-ground (training) because we actually control the whole ground. At Marvel we’ve had issues getting on and sometimes you can only use half the ground.

“All those things should hopefully allow us to get better.”