BRISBANE and North Melbourne are both set to leave their crucial main training sessions in the hands of their assistant coaching groups this week, with Chris Fagan and Alastair Clarkson due to front the Human Rights Commission.
Fagan and Clarkson are due to appear at conciliation sessions at the Human Rights Commission across Tuesday and Wednesday this week regarding the Hawthorn racism allegations.
The sessions come just days before both coaches face critical round three games, with Brisbane due to host reigning premier Collingwood on Thursday night and North Melbourne to play Carlton in its annual Good Friday clash the following day.
The Lions are due to hold their main session at the Gabba on Tuesday and will leave responsibilities to VFL head coach Ben Hudson and the AFL team's assistants, with the club expecting Fagan to return for their captain's run on Wednesday.
The Kangaroos will also hold main training at Arden Street on Tuesday with Leigh Adams, Xavier Clarke and Jed Adcock to control the session, before the players will be given a day off on Wednesday. Clarkson is then due to return for North's captain's run on Thursday.
Both clubs have stressed that it is not unusual or disruptive for a senior coach to miss training, with Clarkson absent for a session earlier this year when he travelled to Sydney for the AFL's season launch.
Fagan has also taken a more hands-off approach recently and usually leaves main training in the hands of his assistant coaching team once the structure of the session has been constructed.
Speaking to ABC Radio on Monday morning, North Melbourne president Dr Sonja Hood said the club's football boss Todd Viney would oversee training, a practice he normally undertakes even when Clarkson is present.
"We handle it the way we handle everything else, we just keep going on," Dr Hood said.
"Todd Viney will be in charge of training on Tuesday. Alastair will miss the training day, but the club will step in and help. We've had a reasonable amount of practice at this so far and it's working fine.
"I'm actually just delighted that after 500 days or whatever it's been, Alastair finally gets to hear directly from the people that have been hurt in this process and they need to have their say and actually I'm really pleased that he finally gets to have his.
"We've got plenty of support around him and plenty of support around the family. Again, we've got plenty of people that can step in and take the role if that's what's needed. But I'm pretty confident he's going into this in exactly the right mindset.
"He'll come out ready to coach on Friday."
Both the Lions and Kangaroos have made 0-2 starts to the season.
