Cornes staunchly supported his coach when speaking to Melbourne radio station SEN on Saturday morning, but did not deny Williams' well known desires to coach in Melbourne.
"It's a funny one. He's alluded to it a couple of times in the past and I think his dream would be to coach Collingwood one day – he hasn't made any secret of that," Cornes said.
"We certainly do want him [to coach next year].
"His record is up there with the best in the competition. I get along great with him and he's got a great relationship with the players."
Port Adelaide's poor form this season has meant the club is sitting at arguably it's lowest ebb since it's inception into the competition in 1997.
"It's been the most difficult year I've been involved with in my eight [years] at the club. We've played in finals six out of the eight years I've been here," said the 2007 Best and Fairest winner.
He pointed to Port's narrow losses early in the season as a catalyst for their slump and made mention of a Grand Final hangover.
"We were 40 points up against Brisbane in the wet and lost that game in round four, and it was one of the games that started things on a downward spiral.
"We've lost six or seven games under ten points," Cornes mused.
"The toll the grand final has taken on the group is probably bigger than we all would have expected. We had a good pre-season and there was no excuses there, but maybe the psychological toll of that was huge."
Williams was blunt in his assessment of midfielder Peter Burgoyne after the loss to the Pies, and Cornes admitted players pushing the age of 30 would be scrutinised heavily in regard to trading.
"If you're playing well and you're in good form none of these issues arise, so probably from Peter's point of view he's not playing as well as he was last year or has done throughout his career.
"When your team's not going to make the finals you look to the younger players to drive you to the next level and Peter's probably in that boat of being over 30 and [will attract media attention]," Cornes said.
