It takes a big footy media event in December to drag Mike Sheahan, Jake Niall and Rohan Connolly off the golf course, but there they were on Tuesday as Mark Thompson finally faced the music at Windy Hill to explain his departure from Geelong and his appointment as James Hird's senior assistant at Essendon.

Unrepentant would be the best description of the tone and the tenor of Thompson's remarks. To summarise, he lost the drive to continue coaching Geelong and decided instead that he wanted to return to Essendon to assist Hird in some capacity or another, and people can read into it whatever they like.

He says that exercised the right to change jobs in much the same way as any other person.

He also denied suggestions that he was talking to Essendon about a role as far back as July, but did confess to telling friends that he was considering walking away from the Cats and that word might have escaped about his plans earlier than he planned. He also admitted what every Geelong supporter has been saying since the preliminary final loss to Collingwood that he mightn't have coached his best during the waning stages of last season.

And that was about it. And we suspect that will be it.

Thompson said that the constant demands of the media and of being the ‘face of the club' were among the reasons why he tired of the senior coaching job at Geelong. Hird will be the face of the Bombers and he (Thompson) will be happy to hang at the back.

But without a responsibility for any particular part of the ground, it is likely that for the first season or so that Thompson will virtually be the co-coach of Essendon. Not much will happen without his imprimatur.

With the cricket test ending in such emphatic fashion, "how long till the footy?" was the question of the day on Tuesday, particularly in Melbourne.

The AFL pre-season and rookie drafts that preceded the Thompson press conference weren't particularly newsworthy. There were no surprises at all in the pre-season draft, with Nathan Ablett joining his brother as the first selection, an arrangement that may well have been part of the deal to get Gary Ablett to the club in the first place.

Bachar Houli to Richmond and Cameron Bruce to Hawthorn were cast in stone ages ago, and for Bruce it is about less money than he would have received at Melbourne but one last chance at landing that exlusive premiership.

The rookie draft saw Mitch Hahn (Western Bulldogs) and Tom Hislop (Richmond) get another chance at their respective clubs. So too did Jay Neagle at Essendon, after a very public delisting and subsequent calling out from the coach. Message heeded and he is back at Windy Hill, presumably slimmer and a bit more fair dinkum about his footy.

Robert Eddy is fascinating. From taking parts in both grand finals, to being delisted by St Kilda just before the draft, and then being redrafted on Tuesday. The wash-up of it all is that the Dean Polo has a place on the senior list at the Saints, while Eddy does not.

Adelaide has drafted Ian Callinan, who at age 27 is hoping to be the James Podsiadly of 2011. Hawthorn has a Wanganeen (Derick), while Melbourne has a Kelvin (Lawrence) because you can't have too many Kelvins in footy.