Montgomery, the losing candidate when Luke Beveridge was appointed at the end of 2014, was reportedly keen to remain at the club for the finals campaign and that too appeared to be the Bulldogs view.

At least for a week.

However, the inner-sanctum mantra at Whitten Oval which dictates that you are either in or out became too strong for Beveridge and his team and saw the assistant encouraged to start looking elsewhere. It was not a good sign that he was not even given the chance to thank the club, after this most recent six-year stint, on its media statement.

That statement came after Fremantle and Ross Lyon took a similar stand in very different circumstances with Peter Sumich. Again the two parties seemed happy enough to work together until the end of the season but all that changed after about a week.

The prevailing view that Sumich already has a job lined up back at West Coast could have influenced Lyon's decision to cut Sumich immediately. Either way Sumich appears to have his destiny in his own hands and his relationship with Lyon was not ideal.

That both clubs and their despotic coaches did not want to work with assistants they knew were leaving should not be blamed however on what is after all simply a soft deadline put in place by the AFL Coaches Association in a bid to improve the future job prospects of their members. Neither Montgomery nor Sumich has been linked to the potential forthcoming vacancy at Brisbane.

The understanding is that up to 25 assistants know they cannot be guaranteed jobs next season and yet are continuing to see out the season.

According to veteran player manager Craig Kelly: "Both clubs and coaches should be mature enough to have the conversation early, suck it up and cop it sweet.

"There's no right or wrong in having a deadline," added Kelly, "but if you didn't have the conversation some clubs would never make up their mind.

"And most coaches have the right attitude and cop it sweet. After all they ask the players to cop it sweet when they're dropped to the reserves." Having failed to establish an anti-tampering rule which would have prevented clubs from interviewing senior coaching candidates before the end of the season, the AFLCA has continued to push clubs to be candid with their assistant coaches.

This is despite several clubs remaining resentful of even an unofficial deadline — particularly those heading into finals — dictating how they do their business.

Meanwhile, Brenton Sanderson is reportedly about to leave his AFL academy coaching role to take up an assistant coaching position at Collingwood. The Magpies are set to part ways with recent Hall of Fame inductee Ben Hart who has worked with Nathan Buckley for the past five years.

Port Adelaide will also make changes to its coaching line up.

Regardless of Justin Leppitsch's future at least three of his assistants – Simon Black, Gary O'Donnell and Shane Woewodin – look certain to depart the Lions. At Richmond senior development coach Mark Williams and Damien Hardwick's long-time assistant Brendon Lade, along with forwards coach Greg Mellor, have all been told they could not be guaranteed contracts for next year.