WESTERN Bulldogs assistant coach Brett Montgomery will not be the club's next senior coach, paving the way for the club to potentially announce its appointment before the senior players return to training next Monday.

Bomber to Bulldogs? You'd have to consider it, says Darcy

AFL.com.au understands Montgomery was told on Thursday that his application had not been successful. 
 
Luke Beveridge remains the favourite to win the vacant job and has not started work at St Kilda as the club's coaching director despite returning from an overseas holiday.
 
The 44-year-old candidate has been keeping the Saints informed of his progress but the Saints were happy for his start to be delayed until the Bulldogs made a decision on their next coach.
 
The timing of that decision remains uncertain.
 
Essendon's general manager of performance and former Adelaide Crows coach Neil Craig is also in the mix, either as coach or as a senior mentor to the appointed coach.
 
Craig is understood to be attending a high performance conference at the AIS in Canberra until Friday.
 
Member of the coaching selection panel Luke Darcy further complicated matters on Thursday when he said that former Geelong and Essendon coach Mark Thompson might be considered after he finished up with the Bombers on Wednesday, however it is considered unlikely he will be the Bulldogs' senior coach.
 
Montgomery was interviewed last week for the senior position and made a positive impression however he did not progress beyond that stage.
 
He had two stints as a player for the Western Bulldogs and played in a premiership with Port Adelaide. He then joined Carlton as an assistant coach at the start of 2008 before joining the Bulldogs in 2011.
 
Beveridge is considered a strong candidate having played 31 games for the Western Bulldogs between 1993-1995 in a 118-game career that included time at Melbourne and St Kilda.
 
At the Bulldogs, he played alongside football director Chris Grant and was Darcy's teammate when the ruckman made his debut in round 21 1994.
 
Both Grant and Darcy are on the selection panel along with CEO Simon Garlick, West Coast premiership coach John Worsfold and football manager Graham Lowe.
 
Beveridge accepted a job late in the season as coaching director at St Kilda and did not participate in the selection process for the Gold Coast job won by Rodney Eade.
 
Craig moved to Melbourne in 2012 to become coaching director alongside Mark Neeld after 157 games coaching Adelaide.
 
He became interim coach at Melbourne late in 2013 when Neeld was sacked before joining Essendon in 2014.
 
He has performed well in the job at the Bombers but is more suited to the performance rather than the administration aspects of the job.
 
Fremantle assistant coach Peter Sumich removed himself from the interview process last week while Brett Ratten decided to remain at Hawthorn where he is contracted as an assistant coach for the next two seasons.
 
The Bulldogs' first-to-fourth-year players have returned to training with recruits Tom Boyd, Shane Biggs and Joel Hamling all hitting the track in the past two weeks, while father-son selection Zaine Cordy trained for the first time on Thursday.