AFL 360 co-hosts Gerard Whateley and Mark Robinson have run the rule over the three most under-fire coaches in the competition, unpacking the circumstances of each as the footy furnace continues to heat up.

Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley, Carlton coach David Teague and Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson are all the subjects of intense external interest as their sides slump outside the top eight and take stock of how they got there.

On Tuesday night, Whateley and Robinson examined the situations of each - read the full transcripts below.

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Brisbane

NATHAN BUCKLEY (Collingwood)

Mark Robinson: It’s clearer now that it’s an absolute mess. We have this situation on the available evidence, does Buckley know if the current board wants him? We’ve got all this talk about the Jeff Browne led ticket, we haven’t seen it publicly, but it’s been written about many many times.

I think Mark Korda and his current board are getting slaughtered in the PR stakes right now. I could imagine if I was backing for Collingwood, I’d be saying well what has happened and what is going on at our football club?

They’ve got a really tough month ahead, they really could be to 2-11 - is that survivable? I don’t think it is. But if they think Buckley’s the man, come out and reappoint him now and get some stability around this football club.

Right now, everywhere you look, this is very, very quickly becoming an inferno and it’s just going on and on.

Gerard Whateley: A one year extension is the most useless thing that could happen. You don‘t kick this conversation down the road, it’s a conversation for now. There is nothing in Collingwood’s timeline that is about 2022 anymore, so you can’t align the coach’s contract to that.

This is one of those moments where indecision would fester instability and you would have these exact same conversations and scenarios would repeat again next year and you make no progress. We’ve watched clubs who have marked time - marking time gets you nowhere.

It’s about 2022, 2023 and 2024. So if there’s going to be a reappointment of Nathan Buckley, it needs to be the coach committing for three years and the club committing to him for three years and anything short of that and they ought to part ways. You know that my very firm view is that they shouldn’t.

This is a three year deal together and a partnership to walk through what’s to come next. You can’t kick a decision as big as this down the road.

MR: Nathan Buckley the person more than Nathan Buckley the coach and when we say Nathan Buckley the person - what this person has meant to the Collingwood Football Club, Bucks has been at that club for almost 30 years.

For 30 years this guy, whether you like him or not, has given his heart and soul on the field and then went away and came back in tough circumstances and now it’s 10 years and people are saying get rid of him.

If you’re gonna get rid of him do it with great respect because he deserves every little bit and right now, I don’t think he’s getting great respect. I really don’t.

Some people are more important to football clubs than others and Buckley is one. People can say you’ve been getting into him for years. Yeah. I thought before he had to go. Right now I don’t know. I presume he’s gone. I do. I presume he’s gone. But Buckley shouldn’t be at this stage of the year, twiddling his thumbs thinking what is going on? It’s not good. Unedifying.

GW: Whatever it is that’s afflicting the club we’re now actually seeing the off field transpose in the on-field. So you’ve got to get all that aligned.

DAVID TEAGUE (Carlton)

GW: I didn’t for a moment coming into this year feel like this was David Teague’s judgment time. I simply didn’t, I was certain he would be coaching next year.

MR: You think it is?

GW: I don’t know. I’m less certain than I was previously. I think he absolutely should be coaching next year. I don‘t think a partial year, a COVID year and one full year represents whether you know or not the bloke can coach ... it would be a flinch reaction I think.

But what they have done is they’ve brought Worsfold in as a mentor and evidently they have sounded out Justin Leppitsch. It does create a picture that they perhaps don’t have as much faith in David Teague as we on the outside might have imagined.

MR: My gut feel went straight back to the training wheels. Were they right? Does he need help? And then I move past that a bit and gave it a bit more depth and said you know what? They’re all in this together. What they’re all trying to do at Carlton, everyone at Carlton is trying to make this club better and make this team better.

If John Worsfold can help David Teague be a better coach, take it. If Justin Leppitsch can help the team be better, get him. We’re in the business of improving our list. Do I go to bed at night thinking David Teague is going to get sacked this year? No, I’m not.

GW: We shouldn’t be there. We just shouldn’t. David Teague should absolutely have next year to coach to run this course of however far he’s going to be able to take it. They would be shearing it off way too fast.

MR: It’d be Carlton of old.

ALISTAIR CLARKSON (Hawthorn)

GW: He sat here at the desk and he said trust history and the thing that has changed is, again, 2022 is irrelevant on Hawthorn’s timeline now. This is about 2022, 2023, 2024 and beyond. There is a realignment at Hawthorn. They’ve made that perfectly clear publicly and obviously that’s happening internally. So it’s no longer about is it going to be his last year as coach - the question now is is he going to do the rebuild.

It’s the same as Collingwood, it’s got nothing to do with 2022 at Hawthorn anymore ... whether that reframes any conversations behind the scenes, that’s the intrigue.

MR: In our game we get burned a lot when you believe what people say to you. Alastair Clarkson sat at this desk three or four weeks ago and when I was badgering him about his future, he got the sort of combative look in him where people don’t trust him. That’s what I felt. People don’t trust his honour or his word. And he said, look at my history, my loyalty. That was it for me. Done. I trust what you just said Alastair Clarkson. So, Alastair Clarkson is not really in my conversation about coach changing. What’s the chances of Hawthorn saying we don’t want you Clarkson?

GW: No, I don’t think that’s how that would unfold.

MR: So that ain’t going to happen. And after what Clarkson said, do you think he’ll say actually I’ve changed my mind, I know I’m contracted but I’m going to Collingwood.

GW: No, but it‘s not actually about running the last year of the contract. It’s about what’s the next period of time and are we all committing to that long period of time together, not about the last year of the contract.

MR: They should re-sign him at the end of the year.