It is hard to remember 24 hours in football quite like this one.

Footy scribes who have been wondering what possible angles haven't yet been covered out of Collingwood and St Kilda have instead been darting between Essendon and Geelong as the Bombers nearly pulled off one of the great coaching coups in living memory.

James Hird coaching Essendon should mean that every cent spent in paying out Matthew Knights more than $1 million with two years left on his contract is easily recouped in additional membership and sponsorship. Hird to Essendon was a done deal several weeks ago despite the charade on On The Couch on Monday night. But that's OK. Playing loosely with the truth is part of the job description for any AFL coach.

The audacious bid to add Mark Thompson as director of coaching, almost came off and indeed it still might. If Thompson concludes over the next few days that the fire in the belly has gone at Geelong, there is nothing to prevent him from bobbing up in the coaching structure at Essendon, initially as a ‘consultant' and perhaps as a more formal overseer somewhere down the track.

It would appear that sometime between Monday night and Tuesday lunchtime, that Thompson had a change of heart. The Australian ran with the Thompson-to-Essendon story with great certainty this morning, but perhaps it was at the 11am meeting with Cats CEO Brian Cook that Thompson fessed up that after 11 years, he was suffering from sort of burn-out.

Thompson apparently wants a three-month break and not to return until well into the pre-season, but that won't sit well with the Cats who for the first time in several years face some tough personnel decisions and may be a player during trade week, which starts next Tuesday.

If Gary Ablett goes to Gold Coast, which even the Cats are now conceding to be a near certainty, the Cats will likely have two first round draft picks to use or to trade between now and 2012. If the coach is sitting on a beach somewhere contemplating his future, then who makes that call?

Quite wisely the Cats are demanding a quick answer because the tough decisions that someday can lead to winning premierships are often made at this time of the year.

It's a testing time for the Cats, the first really, since Thompson was made to endure a review of his position at the end of 2006. They've barely put a foot wrong since and on the back of this prolonged period of success, the club has become a financial powerhouse and its redeveloped stadium the recipient of a stack of cash from the federal and state governments and the AFL.

But they shape to enter 2011 with a new president and new coach, without their best player and no longer boasting that same aura of success.

The Bombers are also a long way from success and it was refreshing to hear Hird offer a sobering assessment of the club's on-field prospects, given the propensity of so many Essendon fans to overstate the capabilities of their list.

Most interesting was when he was asked what, as a rookie coach, he could bring to the side straight away. Fitness, defensive capabilities, winning the stoppages and an ability to work hard with and without the ball were among his answers. Hird couched them as the standout features of the just-played grand final but funnily enough, they were all criticisms of the Bombers made at various stages in the last few years.

Cop that, Matthew Knights.

Hird has wisely acknowledged that he needs that senior assistant alongside him and if it won't be Thompson then Dean Laidley and Mark Williams remain firmly in the frame.

In the meantime, Sean Wellman and Dean Wallis will cross from Melbourne and Fremantle respectively, while Simon Goodwin is believed to be starting his coaching apprenticeship at Windy Hill.

But he'll need to get the mix right or he'll start to feel as lousy as Thompson does right now. And it won't take 11 years for it to happen.