Ash from the Coolaroo recycling plant fire wasn’t the only thing circling above Richmond training on Friday morning.
To Tigers coach Damien Hardwick, love was in the air as well.
Love for pantomime villain Kane Cornes, fallen great James Hird, and even some for Ms Hardwick.
Hardwick is moving on from a much-publicised scrap with Cornes in the aftermath of his side’s woeful defeat to St Kida last Saturday night.
Cornes’ assertion that Richmond had “gotten ahead of themselves” was labelled “s*** comments” by the long-term Tigers boss but Hardwick was eager to douse any notion of a rift on Friday.
“It mightn’t seem this way but I’ve got a lot of love for Kane. We played in a premiership together,” he said.
“Kane has a job to do and so have I. If he speaks about my (Richmond) family in that way, he’ll cop a whack accordingly.
“I also understand he’s got a job to do and I’d never hold that against him.
“It’s like Ms Hardwick. We have our blues every now and then but we certainly make up.
“I prefer making up with Ms Hardwick more so with Kane Cornes. We move on pretty quickly.”
Hardwick followed his analogy with a plea for the AFL community to embrace Hird.
The Essendon great won the Norm Smith Medal in the 2000 grand final, won against Melbourne.
Convention dictates it is his turn to present the medal at this year’s grand final – an offer the AFL has extended and Hird has verbally accepted.
The appearance would be Hird’s first formal role in football since leaving his post as Essendon coach in 2015 – a post that will be forever linked to the clubs’ 2012 doping scandal.
Hardwick is among many in the AFL community ready to embrace Hird again.
“Footy is a pretty forgiving game and James is one of the all-time great players,” he said.
“He’s a great leader and a great friend of mine. From my point of view, (we should) wrap your arms around him and bring him back in.
“That’s the one thing AFL footy is great for, bringing people together. Not only at AFL level but junior levels as well.
“When everyone has an error in life, we’ve just got to make sure we continue to wrap our arms around people and get them involved in the game.”
