Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson has revealed he invited the Hawks to seriously consider his position after his side's disastrous start to the AFL season.
But he never offered to resign.
The Hawks suffered successive 86-point beltings as they slipped to an 0-4 start to their 2017 campaign.
The pressure on the club was such that even the four-time premiership coach felt his tenure needed to be put under the microscope.
"There's no one in our organisation who should be bullet-proof," Clarkson told the Seven Network's Talking Footy on Monday night.
"Our footy club, and all clubs, are now bound by a salary cap in terms of football department spending of which a reasonably successful senior coach will be one of the highest spends in the football department.
"So what I offered to our football sub-committee is 'Let's not be afraid to have the conversation, when we're performing poorly, let's assess every part of our football club including my position'.
"So it wasn't offering a resignation, it was just saying 'Let's be prepared to be transparent and talk about all things'.
"I thought that it was only fair with an 0-4 start."
A lengthy injury list cruelled the Hawks' campaign, but also allowed the club to get games into some promising youngsters.
Hawthorn's season eventually got moving to the point where they were an outside chance to make the finals until the last round.
Still, Clarkson was linked to possible moves to Gold Coast or even Collingwood before Nathan Buckley was reappointed.
Clarkson revealed clubs have enquired about his availability over the years, but reiterated his commitment to the Hawks.
"Those questions happen all the time ... my manager will tell me if there's been an approach," he said.
"But we're really clear in terms of the vision we've got at Hawthorn, I've got two years to run on a contract and I'm not usually one to walk away from that.
"I don't like our players to and I don't like our coaches to.
"But I'm only a temporary custodian and I want to hand the club over in really good nick to the next person.
"If for whatever reason I'm not the right guy then I'll hand the keys in really quickly but right at the moment I feel like there's some blue sky ahead for our club."
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