Simon Goodwin is the forgotten man in the current three-club race to find a senior coach.
The premiership-winning coach departed Melbourne in 2025 and headed north to become Sydney's director of coaching and performance.
While mentoring Swans coach Dean Cox and working with the club's forward line, Goodwin has surprisingly been left out of the conversation on who will become coach of Essendon and Carlton in 2027 and who will be the first coach of Tasmania.
Experienced former senior coaches Nathan Buckley, Ken Hinkley and John Longmire have been front and centre during the race, but Goodwin, who led Melbourne from being cellar-dwellers to 2021 flag winners is yet to be mentioned.
"That's the reason I wanted to stay in coaching," Goodwin said on the 3AW broadcast ahead of the Brisbane-Sydney match. "I love coaching and there's no doubt I want to be a senior coach again at some stage.
"I think we are always evolving and learning and growing and I wanted to be a part of a great organisation in Sydney and the way they do things and how stable they are as a footy club and how successful they have been over a 20-year period.
"I wanted to come up and immerse myself in that. I'm really fortunate for that.
"I'm open to any conversation that comes my way. Clearly, it might be a recency bias because I have just left the game and obviously some time out. I'm not in any rush to get back in.
"I'm here to learn and grow and be a part of a good footy club. If those opportunities arise and people want to be in contact I'm sure I'll take their call.
"But being there once and taking a team from the bottom all the way through to a premiership, I certainly understand what it takes to be successful and create success.
"I'll be pretty particular about the club and people I want to get involved in, it takes a lot of good people to build a really strong football team and I will just sit for those opportunities to arise."
Since making the move to Sydney, Goodwin and his new club - aside from Thursday's performance - have been flying, with a record of 12-3 and sitting second on the ladder.
Goodwin said he had been enjoying his new role after nine years as senior coach at Melbourne.
"I have loved (my time in Sydney)," he said. "It's obviously a bit different from being out of the senior coaching ranks and dropping into this role.
"I have really enjoyed working with 'Coxy' and mentoring him and helping him with strategy and program and working with all the coaches.
"As importantly, I've also got back into the core of coaching and working really closely with players on the offensive side of the game so I have loved that part of it as well and it has really invigorated (me)."
