FOOTBALL clubs like to characterise themselves as families. A portrait of the Essendon family at 5 pm yesterday would have shown, in the foreground, a group of fans, brooding, silent and staring. It would have shown grim-faced James Hird, in suit and scarf, playing kick-to-kick with his two sons, wordlessly. It would have shown four committeemen pressed up against a whitewashed wall, deep in whispered conversation.

In the background, through a half-open door, Kevin Sheedy could have been seen, head down, poring over statistics. But it would not have shown anything of Matthew Lloyd, who was secreted away in an inner sanctum and who, according to the team manager, was "very angry". It was a picture of a family in a pinch.

The parting of club and coach is like a divorce. Last week, Essendon and Sheedy were full of resolve to do it in a dignified way after all these years. Victory over Adelaide seemed to affirm that there would be no rancour and even a little good cheer. Then cracks appeared. On The Footy Show, Lloyd hinted at the idea that Sheedy's very public search for another job might distract the club. Asked if this might be so yesterday, Sheedy replied: "Shouldn't." Meantime, a small group of supporters banded together to try to overthrow the board.

Then came yesterday's insipid performance against Hawthorn, the Bombers' worst of the year. Sheedy appeared shaken. Asked if he would coach out the season, he replied: "I hope so." President Ray Horsburgh guaranteed that he would, saying the decision to sack Sheedy had been made not expressly because of where the club was now, but where it meant to be in three years.

Nonetheless, for the first time, it began to look as if they were staying together for the sake of the kids, an exercise that nearly always ends in tears.

There was about all of Essendon's enterprise on the day a hint of grasping at straws. Before the game, Sheedy made a point on his whiteboard of how important a win was if the Bombers were to play in the finals and give Hird the farewell he deserved. He stressed it again at three-quarter-time.

I, as much as anyone, want to believe that football is as much an affair of the heart as the mind, that it is a construct of more than science, statistics and strategy, that the intangible and the visceral still matter.

But no number of appeals for a proper send-off for Hird ever would or could compensate for the Bombers' inability to break down Hawthorn's carefully and rigorously constructed walls. Here was the proof: with Sheedy's evocation of Hird apparently ringing in their ears, the Bombers capitulated without so much as a whimper in the last quarter. At the final siren, not one Bomber was seen with hands on knees, the usual attitude of he who has given his all.

When announcing Sheedy's sacking, chief executive Peter Jackson said the club's best players this year had mostly been from the senior cohort. It was a way of saying that responsibility soon would devolve onto the next generation, making this the right time for the next coach.

This day, even the venerables failed. Hird was out, Lucas was rarely seen, Lloyd gave away free kicks profligately. Hawthorn made Fletcher tactically accountable to Stephen Gillham, normally a backman, so limiting his effect. The Bombers played without purpose or spirit.

Sheedy used 27 years' worth of subterfuge and obfuscation to explain it. Hawthorn, five years without finals football, might be hungrier, he said. Essendon trailed by only three goals at three-quarter-time, from which position it has won many games. Actually, it was nearly four and flattering to the Bombers. The preponderance of play belonged to Hawthorn and, in the last quarter, it broke Essendon like a dam.

Lucas was slightly injured, Lloyd still not back to full confidence after his year on the sidelines and, besides, a victim of the hands-in-the-back rule (a classic diversion). Paddy Ryder versus Lance Franklin might one day be Paul Vander Haar v Peter Knights reincarnate (another distraction). Essendon had been reconstructing its midfield all year and would give more game time to the young and inexperienced in what remains of the season.

But Sheedy was uncharacteristically downbeat. He made only one wisecrack, when asked the nature of Lucas's problem. "He's sore," he said. "Like me." It was as if the fun days had gone.

Gradually, the change room filled with players' families, cluttering the portrait. The committeemen, hands dug into pockets, continued to talk. Simplistically, this miserable result either vindicated their decision two weeks ago to sack Sheedy or was the outcome of it. Realistically, neither is entirely true, but aspects of an even bigger picture. But divorce is a messy business and, always, someone has to be blamed.

Hird's boys were joined by Fletcher's two sons, likely types. Grandfather Ken watched on. In sad times in any family, kids are always the wellspring. Thomas Hird, barely six, has a left foot way beyond his years and an insatiable appetite for the ball, too. So an old truth was affirmed, that a football club always is bigger than any of its people. Even Essendon, even Kevin Sheedy.