Alastair Clarkson has reassured Hawthorn players of his commitment to seeing out his AFL coaching contract after being repeatedly linked to the vacant Carlton job.
The four-time premiership coach is contracted to the Hawks until the end of the 2022 season.
But with such a resume he's still a huge target for the Blues post, while North Melbourne also have a senior coach vacancy.
Former Hawk Ben Dixon said on a podcast earlier this week that Clarkson was bound for the Blues, which the coach shut down at a meeting on Tuesday with his players, according to midfielder Tom Scully.
"Clarko made a little reference to it this morning," Scully said.
"He just said, 'I'll address the elephant in the room. I'm not going to Carlton'.
"As far as I'm concerned, Clarko's the coach and until he says otherwise, there's nothing really to see."
Scully left GWS, who are sitting in the top four, to join Hawthorn this season and admitted he expected them to better placed than 12th after 14 rounds.
Losing their past three, they have another tough task against premiers West Coast at the MCG on Saturday.
"You look at history, the way Hawthorn's been able to back up year after year over an eight or 10-year period," the 28-year-old said.
"No doubt you're probably thinking after finishing top four last year, the club had aspirations this year to look at that again.
"It's probably not looking that way at the moment but it's not to say we can't do something about it in the last nine weeks.
"We're certainly not thinking the year's done."
Australian Associated Press
