Alastair Clarkson will coach North Melbourne again this season, but it won't be next weekend against St Kilda.
Kangaroos footy boss Todd Viney revealed on Friday Clarkson will begin meeting with the playing group early next week in the next step of his return to coaching, after walking away in May due to the mental toll of the Hawthorn racism saga.
Clarkson has been easing back into his role by performing opposition analysis, meeting with coaches and scouting the U18 National Championships, Viney declaring the "energised" four-time premiership coach remains the perfect man to steer the club into the future.
Speculation was mounting Clarkson would lead the team against the Saints in round 19 but Viney said that wasn't the plan.
"He's in a really good space, in contrast to when he made the call to step down, he was really in not a great way," he told SEN.
"It was way too much for him to try and get through the Hawthorn investigation and coach a senior football team.
"Now I'm seeing a really energised, really clear-thinking, proactive coach ... he's in a much more positive state (and) will come back fully energised and get us back on track.
"The next phase will be to meet the players, he's caught up with the two captains, but the next stage will be coming in, catching up with the players, talk about where he's been, how he's going and give them a little bit of a clearer picture of when he's coming back in.
"He'll coach before the end of the year. Whether that's for four games, five games or three games, it's not in concrete at the moment."
Caretaker coach Brett Ratten will lead the Kangaroos against the Hawks on Sunday, still looking for his first win in charge of the side that's now lost 14 straight games after winning their opening two encounters of the season.
Ratten is the sixth different man to coach North in the last five years, Viney admitting another year of instability for the emerging group had cruelled any chance of them taking the next step in their lengthy rebuild.
"It's been difficult, our players have been through turmoil over the last three or four years with coaches and instability and we know from history that the teams that perform really well on a consistent basis have continuity of leadership and stability of leadership," he said.
"We didn't have a coach for a period of time in the pre-season because of (the Hawthorn racism), then (Clarkson) comes back and the controversy gets bigger and bigger and investigation goes longer and longer.
"In reality, you have a distracted coach and then he has to take time away, introduce another coach into a full-time head coach role.
"But having said that, we feel like we've made some improvements in a lot of parts of our environment, culture, and gameplan, but we're not seeing the consistency of it, and definitely not the wins."
