Murray Davis revealed as Essendon Bombers head coach candidate, latest news, AFLW ball glitch

A Fox Footy commentator has exclusively revealed a fresh name in the Essendon coaching mix, while the “glitch” behind the AFL’s call to ditch ball tracking tech has been revealed.

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LEFT-FIELD CANDIDATE REVEALED IN BOMBERS COACHING RACE

As Essendon’s vision for their next head coach becomes clearer, a new name has emerged from left-field to throw their hat in the ring for the vacancy.

Midweek Tackle’s Corbin Middlemas exclusively revealed Tuesday night to Fox Footy that Adelaide’s Director of Coaching Murray Davis has been sounded out by the Bombers as one of up to 10 candidates.

Davis was a long-time assistant at Brisbane before departing the club in October 2024 after their premiership, where he held roles as a strategist, as well as a line coach both in defence and attack.

“My understanding is the Bombers have cast the net quite wide here, from people of various and different backgrounds,” Middlemas said.

“They’re going to interview six to 10 different people in the initial stage, and then try and narrow that down at a later point.

“Murray’s a very polite gentleman, and understandably wasn’t keen to participate in the broader debate to confirm or deny any of this.

“My understanding is though, that catch-up will take place later this week. He will speak to the Essendon Football Club for the first time as part of that process.”

Midweek Tackle panellist Jon Ralph added: “Everyone at Adelaide is absolutely wowed by this bloke. He is an extraordinary people person, and had an influence from the top to the bottom (at the Crows).”

Prior to his time at Springfield with the Lions, Davis was prominent as a coach in both the Northern Territory and Queensland.

‘COMPLETELY RANDOM RESULTS’: ‘GLITCH’ THAT ENDED AFL’S FAILED $1M EXPERIMENT

A technology “glitch” that threw up “completely random” results during AFLW matches has been revealed as the major reason why the AFL has dumped its ball chip technology for 2026.

The AFL earlier this month announced it’d ditched the smart ball tracking technology for the upcoming AFLW season and replaced it with a vision-based system, which will align with the AFL competition.

Speaking on Fox Footy’s Midweek Tackle on Tuesday night, CODE Sports reporter Lauren Wood explained why ball chip approach had been ditched.

“I’ve spoken to a lot of people over the last 48 hours as to what the sticking point was and why they shelved that technology after just two years,” Wood told Midweek Tackle.

“This is a venture that has cost the AFL well over $1 million. There was a lot of reticence to put an actual figure on it, which I think goes to show exactly how much it was.

“Essentially it was a glitch, for want of a better term, that sat within the technology. This was something that was experienced globally – leagues like the NFL have looked at this technology as well – so this wasn’t just unique to Australian Rules football where it would sporadically and completely out of the blue record contact to the ball.

“Essentially the ball would be sitting still on the ground, the ball could be in flight – and it records either a touch by a hand or a touch to a post … Nobody was able, in that two-year period, to work out exactly why – which is essentially why it’s been shelved.”

While the smart ball technology was rarely called upon, there was an infamous incident in 2024 when Gold Coast’s Jamie Stanton appeared to snap the cleanest of goals against Collingwood – only for the goal to be overturned by ball chip tech. The Suns ultimately lost the game by three points.

“It just goes to show how far back the AFL became aware of these issues,” Wood said.

“They’ve clearly changed tack very firmly – ‘pivoted’ was the word Laura Kane used today when I put questions to her as to why the ball tracking had been officially wiped form the AFLs arsenal. They are firmly in on vision – and you can see why.”

AFLW boss Laura Kane told reporter on Tuesday: “We had a couple of issues with the ball chip and we just wanted more certainty.”

CODE Sports reporter Jon Ralph said it was a “fairly expensive glitch”.

“People have told me the horror stories of it being in-play last year in the AFLW and really senior AFL executives just saying: ‘This is just not working,’” Ralph told Midweek Tackle.

“I think the deal was up to five years, clearly it’s been pulled short.

“I love the fact the AFL has spent some money. It clearly didn’t work and clearly there’s another solution coming through with those Sony cameras from Round 24.

“But if you’ve got a solution like that just throws up completely random results, it doesn’t seem like the perfect solution to me.”

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