Hawthorn hall-of-famer Dermott Brereton has said the decision by Essendon president Andrew Welsh to overlook James Hird in favour of Sydney assistant Mark McVeigh was "ego-driven".
Former Bombers player McVeigh was officially unveiled as Essendon's senior coach on Tuesday after months of discussion and conjecture surrounding Hird's potential return to the helm.
Embarking on an impassioned monologue on ESPN Footy Central on Disney+ on Wednesday, Brereton said it should have been an "easy decision" for Welsh and the Essendon hierarchy to appoint Hird, who last coached the club at the senior level in 2015.
"If you're making this selection, you have a bloke who is a chance of being a good coach in Mark McVeigh ... and you have someone you know is a good senior coach (in Hird), who is sitting right there," Brereton said on ESPN Footy Central.
"I think that decision is simple. It's an easy decision to make. In all good consciousness [sic], you cannot choose a 'chance' over a 'guarantee'.
"I just thought that similar to the way Zach Merrett wanted to leave ... and I like [Andrew Welsh] as a bloke, but we're talking about the craft of managing a club.
"The way he locked himself in by an ego that said '[Merrett] will not go anywhere under my rule' was the same ego that I think had him say 'I'm not going to be swayed by the masses and choose somebody that the bulk of the supporter base want'. [The candidate] the bulk of people in the football world say 'this is the natural selection'.
"I thought it was ego-driven perhaps on [Welsh's] part. I hope somebody can steer me correctly and say 'no it wasn't' but I don't think, if you're sitting in that selection panel, in good grace and consciousness [sic], you can choose Mark McVeigh.
"Tick to him, good luck, he's a good guy. I don't think you can choose him over the candidate that was James Hird."
Brereton said it was a risk to appoint a long-time assistant like McVeigh when Hird was "the best coach" in the mix, and with senior experience to boot.
"I am wishing Mark McVeigh all the very, very best. And he's been a wonderful player in the past, he's done the hard yards, and a lot of people have talked about 'yes, you must serve the apprenticeship', and that can help but it's not essential," Brereton said.
"So what you have when you're selecting a coach, and I've been through it many, many times ... I've sat in the seat and been one of those people who have selected coaches, you have to say to yourself: 'who is going to be the best coach here? Who is going to give us the best chance?'
"When you are interviewing people -- a whole array of people who have not done the job -- you actually select on supposition that they might be good ... what you will also find is being a very, very, very good assistant coach is not a natural entree into being a very good senior coach.
"If you go through history, Michael Voss, Brett Ratten, these guys, these types of guys haven't fully hit the mark as senior coaches, but they've been some of [the AFL] world's best assistant coaches. It doesn't guarantee you're going to be a very good senior coach."
McVeigh was assistant at GWS between 2015 and 2022, later serving as caretaker in 2022 when Leon Cameron was sacked. He then moved to the Swans, where he was an assistant under both John Longmire and Dean Cox until the Bombers pounced on Tuesday.