GEELONG president Frank Costa has re-affirmed his desire to extend coach Mark Thompson's contract beyond the 2011 season.

Thompson signed a new two-year deal last October, which will take his tenure out to 12 years, and he said at the time that he had signed his last coaching contract.

However, with the side still performing at an elite level, Costa is hopeful the dual premiership coach will be having too much fun to follow through on his plan to pursue property development interests when his current term ends.

"Possession is nine tenths of the law - we've still got him so while we've got him we're going to try and hang onto him," Costa said on Friday.

"What I can say about Mark Thompson is that he's really enjoying what he's doing at the moment.

"It’s a great team and a great group throughout the whole football department and I know he's happy with that.

"I'm hoping his enjoyment of coaching the club will extend beyond next year."

The Cats can afford to let their coaching situation play out over the next year or so without fear of a rival club poaching Thompson according to Costa, who has a firm undertaking from his coach that he will not take the reins anywhere else.

Despite his publicly-stated desire to continue what has been a highly-successful partnership, Costa said informal conversations with Thompson hadn't revealed any clues as to his intentions.

"It's like last year when he re-signed for another two years - he doesn't like talking about those things during the football season," he said.

"He likes to really focus on his job so when I talk to him it's only about football matters - not about his own personal situation.

"I would say sometime during next year we'll have a quiet chat and you never know he might be prepared to go on. We're always living in hope."