Port Adelaide's players must bear the weight of pressure on coach Ken Hinkley to keep his job, former Power captain Travis Boak says.
Hinkley says he has a clause in his contract, which expires at the end of 2021, that he must make the finals this season or next year to serve the last year of his deal.
The 10th-placed Power are outsiders to sneak into the finals this year, needing to win their home match against Fremantle on Sunday and hope other results fall their way.
"I'm quite happy to say that if we don't make finals, I won't be the coach of the football club in the near future," Hinkley told SEN radio on Tuesday.
Hinkley was appointed Port coach for the 2013 season and took the club into the finals in his first two campaigns.
But the Power have reached the playoffs just once in the past four years, when beaten in an elimination final.
Boak, who relinquished the captaincy this season, said it was unfair Hinkley was under the pump but it was a by-product of the AFL environment.
"Coaches probably cop too much at times and a lot of it falls on their shoulders which is the way it probably shouldn't be," Boak told reporters on Tuesday.
"They're not playing the game.
"It is disappointing that he (Hinkley) cops so much but he's a very, very strong person and great leader of our group.
"We (players) have a big part to play, we're the ones going out there on the weekend and putting in a performance."
Boak had no doubt Hinkley was the right man to coach Port into the future.
"He's an outstanding coach ... we're all 100 per cent behind him and love him as a person, as a coach, as a leader, as a mentor," he said.
"He's definitely the right man to take us forward."
Boak said speculation about Hinkley's future wasn't impacting on Port's inconsistent season.
"You don't really take too much notice of external voices and if it doesn't affect Ken, it doesn't affect us," he said.
"And it hasn't affected him in any way. He has been outstanding all year.
"Whether the pressure has come from outside or whatever, internally we're really strong as a whole and he's a part of that."