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Neil Craig to manage Essendon

Apr 16, 2014

Former Crows coach Neil Craig and former players association boss Rob Kerr will share the management of Essendon’s overhauled football department.

Essendon have made the appointments in the wake of their disastrous supplements scandal, which resulted in the club being kicked out of last year’s finals series and the 12-month suspension of senior coach James Hird.

Craig joined the Bombers late last year as head of coaching development and strategy – his new position is general manager, football performance.

Previously, he had been director of sports performance at Melbourne Football Club, the caretaker coach at Melbourne after the sacking of the late Dean Bailey and prior to that senior coach at the Adelaide Football Club.

Rob Kerr will be general manager, football operations.

Essendon said in a statement that Craig would be a good fit for the new role.

“Neil is one of the most respected coaches in Australian sport and has already brought an enormous amount of leadership and experience to our Club.

“Neil is well credentialed for this position given his senior coaching and elite performance experience and we look forward to Neil playing an important role within the football department and on the executive team.”

The only senior position yet to be filled at Essendon is their chief executive and that is expected to happen later this year.

In other AFL news, the afterglow from Melbourne’s morale-boosting win over Carlton vanished on Tuesday with the news that Jack Trengove needs season-ending injury.

After being dropped to the VFL for round three, it has gone from bad to much worse for the former Demons’ co-captain, recruited from Sturt in the SANFL.

Trengove has a dreaded crack of the navicular bone in his left foot and will have immediate surgery.

It is a career-threatening injury, but the Demons are confident he will be ready for the start of the 2015 pre-season.

“Jack’s attitude has been outstanding this year, particularly in recent weeks whilst playing in the VFL, and for this to happen to him is really unfortunate,” football manager Josh Mahoney said in a club statement.

“He is a resilient character. At Melbourne, we’ve had two examples of players who have had this type of injury in Colin Garland and Jack Grimes and they both made full recoveries.

“We expect Jack to make a full recovery, and be available for day one of pre-season training.”

Trengove reported soreness following Sunday’s game for VFL side Casey.

Mahoney also said on SEN that Trengove had been managing pain in the foot for three to four weeks.

He said they had previously had the area scanned, but no problems had been detected.

Trengove also had a navicular bone problem at the start of last season.

The No.2 pick in the 2009 draft has played 81 senior games.

Still only 22, Trengove was co-captain with Grimes for the past two seasons.

Originally from Naracoorte, near the Victorian border in south-east of South Australia, Trengove worked his way quickly through the junior ranks with Kybybolite and then moved to Adelaide to attend school at Prince Alfred College.

While completing high school Trengove played in the SANFL, with Sturt.

Trengove also captained the South Australian state team, in the 2009 AFL National Under 18 Championships in which he starred earning a spot in the All Australian Team.

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