A MELBOURNE newspaper reported on Tuesday that the Kangaroos will move to extend their coach's contract as reward for the side's convincing form ahead of this year's finals.
And three-time best and fairest Brent Harvey has weighed in, backing Dean Laidley to remain at the helm until at least the end of the decade.
"His contract warrants renewal I reckon, the same as (key position player) Drew Petrie," he said. "He extended his last week.
"The board will obviously decide that, the players can't put their two bob's worth in. We can say that we still want him, but whether he gets a renewal of the contract, time will tell."
Laidley replaced dual premiership coach Denis Pagan at the end of 2002, and has taken the club to September in two of his five seasons – including a preliminary final last year.
It'll almost certainly be three from six, with the Roos' run of five consecutive wins setting up another berth.
However, Harvey is still reluctant to use the F word.
"First of all, we haven't secured a finals spot yet," he reminded the media at Arden Street on Tuesday.
"We've still got to win one more game to make sure we finish in the eight and the other teams lose around us as well."
The 30-year-old also acknowledged that his mental approach to finals has changed since 1999, when he played in North Melbourne's last flag.
"When I played in the premiership in '99, I was a little bit naive," he said. "I was thinking it was going to happen all the time, because '98 we played in the grand final, I think '97 [the] prelim, 2000 [the] prelim and it was just going to happen.
"If we make the finals, it would certainly mean a lot more now.
"We had different lists," he added, when asked to compare the prowess of Pagan and Laidley. "Denis had an older group and now Dean's got such a young group and teaching them so much.
"Dean might slip under the radar, same as the North Melbourne Football Club. We do every year, nothing's changed and we're pretty happy with that.
"We don't have to talk about ourselves to pump ourselves up. We just go about our business and that's exactly what Dean's done. He's done a fantastic job."
Should the Kangaroos finish fourth, they will meet Geelong in a qualifying final; a rematch of the 2007 encounter that saw them crash to a 106-point defeat to the eventual premier.
And the thought of crossing the ruthless Cats again doesn't bother Harvey.
"I would much rather finish fourth than fifth to eighth or certainly outside the eight, ninth or 10th," he said. "You've got a huge advantage if you finish in the top four and hopefully, if we put our best foot forward and keep winning games, our destiny's in our own hands.
"If we finish fourth ... we play Geelong. It's fantastic for the footy club and it'll be a huge challenge.
"But we don't have to worry about that until we make the eight."
