Dean Solomon Returns as Essendon Faces West Coast Sunday Night
dean solomon is back in charge at Essendon for Sunday night’s meeting with West Coast, the club’s first game since Brad Scott was sacked. The switch hands Solomon another caretaker run while Essendon tries to turn around a run that has delivered just 4.17 per cent of its wins in the past 12 months.
Solomon Back at Essendon
Essendon appointed Solomon as caretaker coach after Scott was removed from the job, and the West Coast match is his first game back in that role. The timing leaves the Bombers with an immediate test against a side that has already seen one interim coaching move this season’s broader theme: clubs changing course and looking for a quick response.
Solomon has done this before. In 2017, he took over at Gold Coast after Rodney Eade was sacked, and his first game ended in a 58-point loss to Brisbane. He coached two more games that year and lost both, then was replaced by Stuart Dew at the end of the season.
West Coast and the caretaker trend
The recent record under caretaker coaches gives Essendon some reason to think a change can produce an immediate lift. Over the past 10 seasons, caretaker coaches have won seven and lost seven in their first game in charge, a 50 per cent strike rate. Josh Fraser was the 14th caretaker coach in that span, and he led Carlton to a 12-point win over the Western Bulldogs two weeks ago after Michael Voss was removed.
That kind of first-up result has not been automatic for everyone. Troy Chaplin’s first game in charge of Melbourne was a 10-point loss to the Western Bulldogs last year, while West Coast lost by 13 points to Brisbane in Jarrad Schofield’s first game after Adam Simpson departed. Essendon now sits in the same short-term coaching cycle, with Sunday night the first chance to see whether the change produces a different response.
Essendon’s 4.17 per cent run
The pressure on the Bombers comes from the numbers as much as the coaching change. Their 4.17 per cent win rate in the past 12 months is the kind of record that turns a single game into an early read on the new setup.
West Coast offers the first measuring stick. Solomon’s earlier caretaker stint at Gold Coast ended with three losses, and this return puts Essendon straight into the same sort of examination that has followed other clubs after a coach has been moved on. The result on Sunday night will not settle the long-term job, but it will show whether the reset has produced anything immediate.
