MARK Harvey, Fremantle's caretaker coach, who played his entire 206-game AFL career under Kevin Sheedy, says his former boss wants to continue his legendary career.

Harvey was disappointed at the way the club had handled the dumping of his mentor, and urged rival clubs to seriously consider the four-time premiership coach when weighing up prospective candidates for 2008.

"They'd (other clubs) be silly not to (consider him as a future coach). I know he wants to coach for another couple of years and I know that personally."

Harvey yesterday agreed with Western Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade's assessment that coaches were given too much credit when things went right and also were lumped with too much criticism and backlash when losses mounted.

"It's tough and the end result is coaches get sacked," Harvey said.

Other Essendon greats said the decision to end Sheedy's remarkable reign was probably the right one, even though they struggled to imagine the club without him.

Tim Watson, who was coached by Sheedy for most of his career, believes the Essendon board handled the decision as well as it could.

"There had almost been a softening up process. Reading between the lines of what Kevin had been saying I was half expecting it to happen," Watson said. "That's as gracious an ending to somebody coaching a football club as you could possibly get … the last thing you wanted was a bitter departure and I don't think that's been the case."

Watson joined former teammates Simon Madden and Paul Salmon in paying tribute to a coach who helped shape their lives as footballers and young men.

Salmon remembered Sheedy collecting him in his car on the eve of the 1985 finals series, when Salmon was struggling with his reconstructed knee. "He told me I had an enormous role to play during the finals series. It was an enormous monkey off my back and the only reason I made it through and played in a premiership. I'm forever grateful for that," he said.

Salmon felt the club did not get Sheedy's ending quite right.

He said: ''Is there a beautifully poetic way to tell a legend of the game and the club, of 27 years service, that his reign is over?"

Ken Fletcher, former club captain and father of Essendon full-back Dustin, revealed that Sheedy addressed Fletcher's Penleigh and Essendon Grammar school team on Monday night before facing the board that decided his future.

"That shows what sort of guy he is," Fletcher said.

Madden was pleased that Essendon people would have a chance to "say goodbye" while Sheedy coached out the remainder of the season.

Eade expected to be testing his coaching wits against Sheedy in the not too distant future.

Eade, who regards Sheedy as "a legend of the game" said yesterday he would not be surprised to confront the old master again next season.

"I reckon he will (coach next year)," Eade said. "I reckon he'll get a job."

He also believes it will be a traditional senior coaching position, not in a mentoring or figurehead role for a young or inexperienced coach such as former Brisbane Lions captain Michael Voss.

Eade believes the mentoring concept can work, providing whoever is involved is prepared to "park their egos", but said he believed Sheedy was not ready for such a role yet.

"I don't think so, not now," Eade said. "I think he's still got a lot to offer as a coach in his own right. I could see Kevin doing that in four or five years' time, but for a person to do that, there'd have to be no desire to be the main man again. And I think Kevin would still have the burning desire to coach."

Eade dismissed two concerns that had been raised against Sheedy coaching on elsewhere next season: his age (59), and the fact that he has experienced only the Windy Hill environs for the past 27 years.

"Kevin's greatest quality has been his ability to change. To be able to change direction a lot of times," Eade said.

As for the age issue: "You look at (recently departed Socceroos coach) Guus Hiddink. He's supposed to be the guru, the legend, and he's 62 or something."

With WARWICK GREEN