Fascinating times at North Melbourne and Collingwood, where Kangas coach Brad Scott is the subject of much behind-the-scenes talk, discussion and debate.
Scott comes out of contract at the end of 2018 but it seems two power-brokers at North -- president Ben Buckley and board member Glenn Archer -- are not convinced he's the right man to lead the team's rebuild.
Scott's greatest supporters at board level, former president James Brayshaw and his brother, Mark, are no longer involved in the club, which has served to erode the coach's power base.
There is heavy speculation that Collingwood, set to part ways with Nathan Buckley at the end of the season, is interested in luring Scott across from Arden St. Scott is a former development coach at the Pies, where he worked alongside Mick Malthouse and some of the older Magpies' players, including Scott Pendlebury and Steele Sidebottom.
The key man in these backroom discussions is Collingwood's football director, Geoff Walsh, a close friend and confidant of Scott's.
Walsh was, until late last year, the football ops boss at North Melbourne and planning to wind down in 2017, working in a part-time role mentoring list manager Cam Joyce. But that all changed when the Magpies offered Walsh the footy director's job following Graeme Allan's suspension.
So we've got a situation where Roos' backroom men Buckley, Archer and one or two others at North Melbourne would be secretly quite happy if Collingwood came knocking and made an offer to Scott.
The AFL has made it known that it would view dimly any North move to sack Scott and pay him out a year's salary, given the club's parlous - albeit improving - financial state.
For all his success in taking a modestly talented North Melbourne team to preliminary finals in 2014 and 2015, Scott polarises opinion. His supporters say his knowledge of the game is unsurpassed and he has done fantastically well in extracting the most from a limited squad.
But others feel he is too soft on the players, that he doesn't inspire a visceral, emotional response from the team - preferring to choreograph them in a more clinical, dispassionate way - that he's overly loyal to underperforming senior players and that his communication with the younger players is poor.
Then there was the episode late last year when Scott's management explored with Brisbane the possibility of Scott moving north to coach the Lions when it became clear Justin Leppitsch was on his way out.
Scott, 41, has also been linked to Gold Coast where it seems likely - at this stage - that coach Rodney Eade will not be offered a new contract beyond this year.
But it is believed new Suns' chief executive, Mark Evans, who took on the role after being a long-time operations manager at the AFL, is not a great fan of Scott's and would not be rushing to take him on.
Ben Buckley gave an endorsement of Scott in a Herald Sun interview this week, but it was hardly definitive, gung-ho and unambiguous. Asked if he fully expected Scott to stay on as coach in 2018, Buckley said: "I've got no reason to expect he wouldn't be."
On Thursday, at his weekly press conference, Scott was similarly unconvincing: "I understand the speculation but I'll let people do the speculating while I concentrate on the job I have to do."
The Kangaroos' board won't sack Scott but, by the same token, they certainly won't stand in his way if he gets an offer and wants to move.