Essendon great Matthew Lloyd says James Hird attempted to convince him to come out of retirement during his first season as the club’s senior coach in 2011.
Lloyd’s glittering career was brought to an abrupt end at the end of 2009 when he admittedly fell out of love with the game, leaving him stranded at 270 matches and 926 goals, 74 short of the magical 1000-goal club.
The champion goal-kicker admits he has no regrets about potentially being a part of the exclusive club that Sydney’s Lance Franklin joined on the weekend, but revealed an audacious bid from his former captain that would’ve seen him extend his career.
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“A year after retirement I got a call from James Hird to come into the footy club about a coaching role,” Lloyd told Nine’s Footy Classified.
“I got there and he and Brendan McCartney were there, and Brendan McCartney said, ‘Hirdy, man up and ask him what you really want to ask him’.
“He said, ‘We have a spot on our list. Would you come back and play?’, and I said, ‘Hirdy, the day I retired, I was a lot happier than what I was when I was still playing’.
“Justin Koschitzke said one day, ‘I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed playing a game of footy’. People were surprised by that, but that was me in my last few years, so I haven’t got any regrets.
“(Hird) said to me, ‘I know you’re not what you were, but I still think you’re capable of kicking 50 goals a season. There’s not many who can do that’, and I said, ‘No, I’m done’.”
Lloyd revealed that Franklin’s milestone achievement last Friday had resulted in his loved ones going down memory lane.
“I did get a lot of messages from a lot of people who I never thought I would’ve heard from,” Lloyd said.
“They said, ‘I wish you’d hung around to do that’. It was more family and things like that. I’ll admit they did mention it. They said, ‘I think you deserved it and should’ve done it’.
“But for me, when I retired it was nothing about thinking about getting to 300 games or 1000 goals; I wasn’t happy and I wasn’t enjoying myself. Talking about becoming a chore, football was the biggest chore for me.
“If I was to achieve it, I needed to go to another environment and see if I could get my love back for the game. But my fear at that time was, imagine I’d signed for two years at Carlton or Collingwood or Sydney or the Bulldogs, who all had a little interest, and I didn’t have my love back. What a terrible way to end my career.”