Ross Lyon is open to a call from Carlton regarding their head coaching position, should the club decide to move on from David Teague.
He also revealed his decision to reject an approach from Collingwood and why he made that call.
Lyon expects Carlton to make the approach to Alastair Clarkson first and foremost after the season, if Teague is moved on, but if they come to him, he will take their call.
“Well someone said once, ‘it’s your press conference, Ross’, so what I‘ll say is David Teague is on record publicly saying he’s struggling, so the first thing is I think all of us really need to do is respect that and not injure David Teague,” Lyon told Footy Classified.
“Carlton have been strong with Mark LoGiudice, they’re going through the process and they’ll review and then make a decision, I believe that’s the way they’re going.
“Me personally, I have shifted a little bit, that did happen with Leigh, it had me thinking. Look, it didn’t end super well at Fremantle although I felt I coached really well in the last year, we were fifth or sixth on the ladder with seven wins and five losses and then we fell away.
“I look at some of that vision and I looked about 800 so why would you go back into it, but it did stimulate my thinking. If an opportunity arose, and I say that with the greatest respect to Carlton, and they rang me, I would entertain it, but I also understand that I haven’t got tickets on myself, it’s a red-hot field, Alastair Clarkson is available.
“What I will say to you (Caroline Wilson) is you were spot on with Alastair at Hawthorn the whole way and it was spot on. As part of that you were saying, I’ll paraphrase, but that Alastair Clarkson would coach the Carlton Football Club. Me, with all the intelligence that I have within the marketplace, I think that they’ll speak to Alastair at the right time, which is next week and I think you haven’t been wrong yet and I still don’t think you’re wrong.
“Yes, certainly take the call and consider it. I am aware, there’s enough Carlton people, famous Carlton people, premiership players, coaches, ex-champions that are advocating in a sense because they’ve worked with me or know me personally and understand their club and there’s those sort of connections, so I do know that’s occurring as well.
“It makes you feel good - to be honest if Leigh Matthews says you should coach again and then you read his article, there’s no one else in the AFL that’s coached two different clubs and taken them to Grand Finals, you can’t fluke that so we all do need some affirmation and it probably just lit the fuse a little bit.”
On the Collingwood side of things, Lyon felt the chemistry was off when he met with the Pies.
“I don’t think Graham Wright would mind, he reached out to a friend to get my number and I was aware and just said respectfully I wouldn’t entertain that for a variety of reasons,” he said.
“It’s hard to articulate. Sometimes it’s just chemistry.
“I’ve said if I was the Carlton board and I could get Alastair Clarkson I don’t think you could go past that. If the measure is premiership cups well there is no decision is there? Sometimes it’s chemistry.
“If you get a head-hunter ring you and you go and meet them and you go for the job, if you haven’t got that chemistry, that happens pretty quick, well it doesn’t happen, or it shouldn’t happen. If Ed (McGuire) was president of Collingwood, it’d be a different story.
“I think it’s instability. I think Nathan (Buckley)’s a bit unlucky. I don’t know Nathan, Nathan’s not a friend, but just from the outside... I think if you see misalignment, it’s a red flag.”