Essendon coach Ben Rutten survived on Monday but it may only be a matter of time before he is sacked.
Rutten apparently held on to his job by the skin of his teeth as rumors swirled about his future following the Bombers’ embarrassing 84-point loss to Port Adelaide on Sunday.
The club held a board meeting on Monday, its second in 24 hours, and Rutten survived the axe, at least for now.
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Essendon chief executive Xavier Campbell confirmed Rutten was not being sacked as coach and confirmed the club had not had a discussion with former Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson.
“Ben is still our coach,” Campbell said.
“There are ongoing discussions at board level. They will continue this week.
“I haven’t spoken to Alastair Clarkson.”
Essendon chairman Paul Brasher has resigned from his post, but Rutten’s job is still not secure, with the Herald Sun’s Jon Ralph declaring his position “untenable”.
Rutten said he was focused on doing his job when he arrived at Firefighters practice Thursday.
“Obviously it’s not ideal,” he told Channel 9.
“I have the confidence of the players, I have a job to do and I’m going to train as best I can in the next five days.”
The coaching carousel is flying high as calls grow for the Firemen to look for four-time first place winner coach Clarkson.
Fox Footy’s Mark Robinson believes Rutten’s future at Essendon is “hanging by the thinnest of threads”, while his AFL 360 co-host Gerard Whateley said Clarkson could replace Rutten at the end of this week.
“I think after the supplements sagas, (Essendon) didn’t want to upset anyone. They were playing vanilla football, Ben Rutten comes in and they’re playing vanilla football,” he said.
“They’ve just gone down this waterway … meanwhile, watching Carlton, Collingwood step up and this footy club is only in the bottom six. It hasn’t been good enough … there’s certainly no confidence (in Rutten) .
“This performance against Port Adelaide is the most bland of any team this year. Ben is not an outgoing manager, but when you saw him yesterday, he is not a manager but human emotion. It shows something because your players are not. It’s like if you knew
“To do a performance like that, the heart had gone. The heart had fallen from the club, from the team.
“They said to him today, ‘Well… we’re going after Alastair Clarkson. I don’t know if we will get it or not. If we don’t, we’ll have another talk. But if we get it, sorry mate, you’re gone and Alastair Clarkson will move in. This could happen tomorrow.”
“When you have the three clubs in front of you: the Giants, the Kangaroos and Essendon. Alastair Clarkson has all three of these clubs, unless he has a tremendous soft spot for North Melbourne and has developed a very strong relationship with Soya Hood…unless they’ve developed so closely that Clarkson says “I can’t let you down now” … North Melbourne will. be telling Alastair that they want an answer by Wednesday to Thursday this week.
“Because if it’s not Clarkson, they’ve got to move. They’ve put Alastair Clarkson on a month.
“They’ve got a plan B – the site won’t go down because Alastair Clarkson has said no. But they’ll want an answer and I think Sonya Hood and the North Melbourne officials will sleep a bit rough tonight because they want Alastair Clarkson.
Clarkson has long been linked with coaching vacancies at North Melbourne and GWS, but the Bombers are fast establishing themselves as another serious option for the highly-rated mentor.
“Essendon is all in Alastair Clarkson. We think that’s true … so it’s over for Ben Rutten,” said Whateley, who added he “always felt it was a possibility that it wasn’t just North Melbourne and the Giants.”
“It was about eight weeks ago that I was in the red Clarkson was interested in the Essendon job but it couldn’t happen while Paul Brasher was chairman because he had a different course.”
Veteran reporter Caroline Wilson told Channel 9’s Footy Classified: “It looks like Ben Rutten is just hours away from being the manager of the Essendon Football Club.
“This has been building since May/June this year, we know Paul Basher is under pressure. “He has resisted looking for another senior coach, Ben Rutten has backed, as has Xavier Campbell.
Wilson believes Clarkson will coach Essendon next year, while Bombers great Matthew Lloyd also called on his former club to pursue Clarkson’s signature.
“That’s my advice,” he said.
“I understand he has suggested to North Melbourne that the decision is a few days away, that it has been extended.”
Rutten is in his second season in charge of the Bombers, but the sickening sight of one of his own players refusing to look at him on the bench prompted 300-man Kane Cornes to declare that Rutten “must to leave”.