Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell said the club had “a fair bit of interest” in Zach Merrett after Brad Scott said on Tuesday night that he would have let the Essendon captain join the Hawks last year and still feels that way. Mitchell called the public comment “interesting” and said the failed move was out of Hawthorn’s control.
“When you hear the coach say he wanted something different from the football club, it's not completely unexpected, I suppose,” Mitchell said on Wednesday. “But hearing it publicly like that was interesting.” He added: “We obviously had a fair bit of interest in Zach... that didn't come to fruition, which was out of our control, we thought.”
The exchange landed on a messy night for Essendon, with Scott sacked as coach hours after making the Merrett remark. The Bombers blocked Merrett’s attempt to join Hawthorn in last year’s Trade Period, and he is now expected to seek a move again at the end of this season. Mitchell said Hawthorn would keep moving forward in the meantime: “So we'll soldier on with this year and see how we can go, and make sure we're giving ourselves the best chances and we'll see if we can improve our list later on.”
Merrett, for his part, would not talk about his future on Tuesday night, even as speculation built around the coaching shake-up at Essendon. Instead, he spoke warmly about James Hird, saying: “I can only go off our relationship. It's very strong,” and added that Hird had been “a great mentor” and “someone I can always confide in.” He said he got on well with Hird and that the former coach had “a got a great viewpoint on the game.”
The remarks did little to cool the noise around Merrett’s future. They added another layer to a story already shaped by Essendon’s upheaval, Hawthorn’s known interest last year and the midfielder’s reluctance to shut down speculation outright. Mitchell summed up the mood with a shrug: “I was a bit like everyone else – good TV.”
