Ex-Collingwood premiership coach Mick Malthouse is apprehensive of Hawthorn's decision to implement a coaching succession plan involving Alastair Clarkson and Sam Mitchell.
The Hawks announced on Tuesday that the current Box Hill VFL senior coach would replace Clarkson at the end of 2022.
Malthouse identified similarities between Hawthorn's manoeuvres and the 2009 arrangement that led to Nathan Buckley taking charge of the Magpies at the end of 2011.
"Both clubs didn't want to lose their favourite sons, so the most obvious thing to do is keep them at the club – and the only way you can do that is to offer them what they want, which is the senior job", Malthouse told the Herald Sun.
"There are very strong similarities and I think [Hawthorn] have been pressured and I would use the word panic, which is unusual for Hawthorn.
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"But it seems to be a very quick response and no doubt Mitchell would have mentioned that he had at least been sounded out about the Collingwood job".
When asked if the Pies had also panicked in devising the infamous Buckley succession plan, Malthouse doubled down.
"There's no doubt they did. It would have been, 'Well, geez, we can't lose our favourite son. What's he want? He wants the senior coaching job', so there's a bit of panic involved. We'll move the chairs around".
Malthouse declared he suspected Hawks president Jeff Kennett controlled his board in the same way Eddie McGuire did at Collingwood.
"That is an outsider's observation but I have no real proof", Malthouse said.
"I don't know how close Kennett is to Mitchell, is it as close as McGuire was to Buckley? Probably not, but McGuire didn't want to lose Buckley, who had been interviewed by North Melbourne, but would he have got the North Melbourne job? No idea. Only North could tell you that.
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"Would Mitchell have got the Collingwood job? The hint I heard was no".
Asked if Hawthorn had made an error in judgement, Malthouse said: "The proof is always in the pudding. Two years into it, you'll have some indication of whether it has worked.