Nathan Buckley remains confident that a decision on his future at Collingwood won't be made until after Round 23, despite a board meeting being scheduled for next Tuesday.
The likelihood of the embattled coach staying at the helm of the Magpies beyond this season remains in limbo, especially now that it's official his team will miss the finals for the fourth year in a row - something they haven't done since 2001.
Buckley conceded the club would take into consideration his assertion late last year that if Collingwood failed to finish in the top eight this year, he would almost certainly lose his job.
Last month, former CEO Gary Pert guaranteed Buckley his job until the end of this season in a meeting with the players and Buckley saw no reason why that would change with a wide-ranging review of the club still taking place.
"I believe that 'Walshy' [Collingwood football manager Geoff Walsh] and [interim Collingwood CEO] Pete Murphy are putting together the information that they've gleaned from the review and what the club's plans are going forward," Buckley said on Thursday.
"We've said pretty consistently that the end of the season would be when those discussions take place so I'm not really expecting anything until after the Melbourne game [in Round 23]."
However, Buckley said he wouldn't be completely sure if he wanted to coach the club next year, either, until after he sees the results of the review for himself.
"As the club is gathering information for what its future is, I'm interested to see what that is also and I'll be part of that discussion," he said.
"It's not something that I'm thinking about until the end of the year."
Buckley paid tribute to the way his players have handled the intense speculation surrounding his future by losing just one of their last five games and insisted they'll continue to maintain their focus on winning their final two games against finals-bound Geelong and Melbourne.
"I've been proud of the players' ability to maintain their discipline and their energy levels to the way that we've handled the last four or five weeks," Buckley said.
"I've got no reason to suspect that we would have any drop off just because the mathematical chance of finals has left us.
"We come up against two really good opponents in the last two weeks and it's a chance for players to play the game at the top level against the best and to continue to test themselves and that's their mentality."
Buckley said he would make three to four changes to the side that lost to Port Adelaide last week and that Daniel Wells, untried father-son pick Josh Daicos, Tim Broomhead, Jackson Ramsay, Josh Smith and Lachie Keeffe were all in the mix to take on the Cats on Saturday at the MCG.
Will Hoskin-Elliott also remained a chance of facing Geelong after injuring his hip against the Power.
Collingwood have the equal-best active winning streak against Geelong (three games) but Buckley said that impressive recent record would count for little when the two sides renew acquaintances.
"You need to execute to get the result," he said. "We need to make sure that we go in with the right plan with the group that we'll have."
