James Hird joins AI firm after missing out on Essendon coaching job

October 29, 2026 — 12:01am

AFL great James Hird has taken a full-time job with a Melbourne artificial intelligence company – two months after Essendon chose Mark McVeigh over him as senior coach.

The Brownlow medallist will run a new sports division at Affinda, which is backed by Toll founder and former Essendon chairman Paul Little. Hird will keep his role as director of coaching at VFL club Port Melbourne, which he does after hours and on weekends.

“This is very much a full-time role, but I will continue my role with Port because it’s something I love,” Hird told this masthead.

“I was disappointed, you know, thoroughly disappointed,” he said of missing out on the Essendon job. After the decision, he sat down with Affinda chief executive Tim Toner. “I was sort of like, well, why don’t we create something in sport that hasn’t really been done.”

Founded in Melbourne in 2012 and run by Toner and his brother, Ben, Affinda sells software that pulls information out of documents, as well as software that law firms use to compare contracts. Toner said it had customers in 85 countries.

It was valued at $220 million after raising $25 million in February, The Australian Financial Review reported. Little put $15 million into that round.

Asked whether Little had a role in his hiring, Hird said: “Not so much bringing me in, but when I spoke to Paul maybe a year ago about AI and sport, he mentioned that, would I like an introduction to Tim.” Hird said he “put my hand up and said yes, please”.

Little became Essendon chairman in 2013 and backed Hird through the 12-month ban he accepted from the AFL that year under a settlement over the club’s supplements program.

Asked why clubs should trust him with their performance data given the supplements saga, Hird pointed to security. “The data is kept on their servers and with them, we’re providing a tool that they can use within their club and within their safety and within their security,” he said.

Toner said Affinda already had “multiple customers” among sporting organisations in Australia and overseas, but would not name them. “In the sporting world, there’s a lot more sensitivity around disclosure, particularly around what they’re doing with AI,” he said.

He said sporting organisations had been approaching the company for about 18 months. Affinda initially paid them less attention than its corporate clients, he said, until bigger and better-known clubs started asking what AI could do.

Hird said he had been using AI at a basic level for about 18 months, in his coaching and in analysing games for television. As he and Toner talked, he said, the possible uses grew. “The use cases just sort of bounced from five to 50.”

Clubs already collect GPS data, Champion Data statistics, gym results, daily wellness data and training and match vision, he said, and AI could help bring it together. He recalled 8am meetings as a coach, deciding which players could train and how much: “Can they have 100 kicks, can they have 20 kicks, can they have 50 kicks.”

It could help on game day, too. “In a coaches’ box, it’s very chaotic, and if you can reduce some of that chaos and some of that noise, there’s no doubt you can think more clearly as a coach,” he said.

When Hird started playing, he said, “the only data you got was your kicks, marks and handballs”. He described Affinda’s work as “complementary” to Champion Data, the AFL’s official statistics provider, which is 49 per cent owned by the league.

Toner said clubs that moved early would pull ahead. “I think what we’ll see in the next 12 months is the first mover advantage is real,” he said. “I think there’ll be a lot of clubs and teams playing catch-up if they’re not really at the front of that wave.”

The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.

David Swan is the technology editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously technology editor for The Australian newspaper.Connect via X or email.

From our partners