Essendon's Mark Thompson has indicated strongly that he is prepared to stay at the AFL club as their fulltime senior coach.
The Bombers could sack current coach James Hird as early as Thursday, paving the way for Thompson to take over again.
Thompson has denied having any discussions with Gold Coast, who have sacked their foundation senior coach Guy McKenna.
The two-time Geelong premiership coach was in charge at Essendon this season as Hird served a 12-month suspension over their supplements scandal.
Speaking at Wednesday night's Essendon best and fairest count, Thompson never mentioned Hird by name or even referred to the tense situation surrounding him.
Essendon and Hird are at odds after the Bombers decided not to appeal against last month's Federal Court verdict.
While Hird has made no public comment, there are widespread reports that he plans to appeal.
While Thompson did not commit to Essendon in Wednesday night's speech, he wants to stay at the club.
He also definitely wants to continue as a senior coach, rather than working under Hird as he did before this season.
"The thing I'm really struggling with right now is taking a step back," Thompson said.
"The plan was to leave (Essendon) after this year.
"I don't really want to, because I genuinely love this football club and I love the players.
"But I can't do a job that doesn't actually fill a need.
"So I'm just going to have to wait and see how we go over the next couple of days."
Thompson would be a natural fit for the vacant Suns post.
As soon as the Suns confirmed on Wednesday that McKenna was gone, Thompson became the raging favourite to take over.
But Thompson was adamant there had been no contact with the Suns, who sacked McKenna earlier on Wednesday.
"I haven't talked to Gold Coast. I said somewhere that the 'third parties' are involved, you know who I was thinking were the third parties? Industry people, saying 'they're coming, Gold Coast are coming'," he said.
"That's all that was."
McKenna's position had come under intense scrutiny following a review of the club's football department.
Despite having a year left to run on his contract, the two-time West Coast premiership player was told by Suns chairman John Witheriff the board didn't believe he was the man to take the club forward.
After being in contention for a maiden finals appearance for most of 2014, the Suns faded when captain Gary Ablett suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in round 16.
That failure to crack into the top eight, plus rumours of player unrest, forced the Suns to consider their options.
"My reading of it, my understanding of it, is who I am as a person is not the right person to take us forward," McKenna said.
"Do they want a coach with premiership history, success? If they do I can't answer that because I haven't taken a group of players into finals or finals contention."
Witheriff denied the club had spoken to Thompson, though reports had emerged before Wednesday's decision that a third party had been appointed to speak to him.
Essendon chairman Paul Little said on Wednesday night that they are in discussions with Thompson over his future role with the Bombers.
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