In a head-turning development, incoming St Kilda senior coach Ross Lyon has revealed that being reached out to for the then-vacant Essendon coaching job was the "pre-cursor" to Lyon deciding to pursue the vacant St Kilda role.
Lyon, who is now officially St Kilda's coach after an unexpected turn of events led to the sudden sacking of former coach Brett Ratten, also coached the Saints from 2007-11 before going on to coach Fremantle from 2012-19.
Speaking on RSN Breakfast on Tuesday morning, Lyon acknowledged Essendon's pursuit of him, as well as eye-opening conversations with a mentor, led to his re-consideration of coaching at AFL level.
"To be honest, the pre-cursor (to eventually accepting the job at St Kilda) was being reached out (to) for the Essendon job," Lyon started.
"After the Carlton process, or whatever it was, I was like 'that'll do me', but (Essendon General Manager of Football) Josh Mahoney reached out, and then I had a conversation with my mentor and we had a wider discussion about what AFL coaching means and is, because something looped back to me about the Essendon job even after I'd said no and stimulated me, and then I was like 'right, I will put something together' and I really opened my mind to it," Lyon said.
Lyon claimed his impending Moorabbin return wasn't met with resistance by anyone with "big influence" at the club.
"I know the who's who around (St Kilda), and to be honest, all those big families that have big influence, in one form or another I do have a connection, and if any of them had have been really negative about [me returning] I would have pulled up the drawbridge, but that wasn't the case," he revealed.
Lyon also brought to light the fact that his St Kilda return was not a sure thing until the very end, noting a three-hour meeting on Sunday that finalized the move.
"For anyone listening, Sunday morning we had the final meeting that went for three hours," Lyon said.
"There were some things that I was addressing and wanted to be aligned with, and if none of that got done, it was falling over. I knew that, they knew that. I didn't sign my contract until yesterday morning.
While the 55-yer-old didn't go into specifics about what held up the signing of his four-year Saints contract, it would appear that locking in his return to the club was not all smooth sailing.
