CONTRACT talks between Collingwood and Jordan De Goey's management have begun, but the Magpies are remaining tight-lipped on how they're progressing.
The out-of-contract midfield bull's value has skyrocketed this season with his impressive form as both an onballer and forward attracting interest from rival clubs.
On June 14, De Goey's manager Ben Niall told SEN he planned to sit down with the club and "start a conversation" over the next couple of weeks.
Discussions have advanced since then, with Nathan Buckley revealing on Thursday that negotiations had officially begun.
"I believe so," Buckley said when asked if talks had started.
However, the coach insisted he didn't know how far things had progressed.
"I wouldn't be aware of that – you'd have to speak to [list manager] Ned Guy," he said.
Buckley foreshadowed a potential mouthwatering contest between the 22-year-old Pie and fellow gun midfielder Patrick Cripps in Sunday's clash with Carlton at the MCG.
"They're both big bodies, and Patty Cripps has been executing that role as well as anyone – he's a big bodied midfielder and a huge man," he said.
"Jordy is a big body as well and we expect he, Jordy, will share his time between midfield and forward.
"We need to keep looking for ways to challenge the opposition and new ways of maximising our strengths, and Jordy through the midfield and clearances does that.
"It just gives us another string to our bow, whether we use him in the midfield or up forward and in what balance against certain oppositions."
Both Collingwood and Carlton are coming off their bye, with the Pies having mixed success following the mid-season break in recent years.
In 2015, they lost six straight games after the bye despite entering it on a run of four wins.
Last year, they fell in three straight games to Port Adelaide, Hawthorn and Essendon after losing to Melbourne going into the break.
Buckley said he felt they just "weren't ready as a group" in 2015 but increased maturity and depth this season left them better placed to respond to the week off.
"It's probably easy to back-announce and to look retrospectively and say that, but in [2015] we had a narrow loss to Hawthorn and then travelled over to Freo and lost by a goal and then Port Adelaide by three points in three successive weeks," he said.
"It seemed to me like our spirit was broken a little bit at that point of the year, even at 8-6 and with a positive record.
"We just weren't able to maintain our positive momentum and I suppose what that tells you is you've got to continually tip into it, and you can't take the foot off the accelerator at any point, you don't take anything for granted and you rely on continual improvement to get the results you want.
"We can't go back and do anything about 2015 but I think our squad is more resilient and more ready, we've got a deeper squad so there's more competition for spots and that's a good problem to have."
With none of the Pies' big guns to return this week, Buckley will look to the VFL team for the replacement for Daniel Wells, who will miss the rest of the season with the foot he hurt against Melbourne two weeks ago.
He said Rupert Wills, Sam Murray, Adam Oxley and Ben Crocker had been performing well, while Brayden Sier remains in contention to make his AFL debut against the Blues.
However, he confirmed veteran Jarryd Blair would miss 3-4 weeks after hurting his hamstring at training on Monday.
