NORTH Melbourne coach Brad Scott has become an almost unbackable favourite with bookmakers to move north to the Gold Coast Suns.

The Australian noted Scott opened at $41 when Rodney Eade was given his marching orders last week but sportsbet.com.au currently has the former Lions player at $1.60 — well clear of next in line John Barker ($7) and Dean Solomon ($9).

Betting on coaches can swing wildly based on just a few bets because the amount you can win is limited and it’s not a traditionally popular place to punt.

A look back at the market when the Suns job was last up for grabs in 2015 revealed Mark Thompson was on similar odds to Scott is this time while Eade — who won the job — was a $31 outsider.

But Geelong premiership forward Cam Mooney isn’t ruling out a shock move north for the twin brother of Cats coach, Chris, if the Suns muster a monster offer.

Scott, who led the Kangaroos to back-to-back preliminary finals in 2014-15 but has seen his team fall to 16th on the ladder this season, has one year remaining on his current contract.

“If you’re a professional coach, you go where the work is,” Mooney said on SEN’s The Run Home.

“Can he do a rebuild? Well history says probably not. So does he take the one year next season at North and they then struggle, or take a four or five-year contract at Gold Coast?

“Unless the Roos can guarantee him another three or four years, which clearly they are probably not going to do, then surely he’d take the longer offer.”

Magpies mentor Nathan Buckley who is another who could be targeted with a promise of enhanced job security but Eade, who worked alongside Buckley at the Pies earlier this decade, sees his former colleague staying put.

“I had a really strong relationship with Bucks and I really enjoyed working with him,” the former Gold Coast, Sydney and Western Bulldogs coach told SEN Breakfast.

“The players really like him. He’s got a great rapport with the players ... I think he is really starting to grow as a coach six years in.

“I’d certainly be positive about him doing the job. I think he is improving every year as coaches do.

“I think they have a reasonably young list, they’ve had a couple of injuries, but if they got one or two players as well at the right end of the ground, they could forge their way up the ladder.

“The answer is yes. He is probably the man to take them forward.”

Fremantle coach Ross Lyon was shockingly — and Lyon says, inaccurately — to the Magpies position last week.

It prompted the Dockers to release a club statement denying the report — an extraordinary step Lyon said was necessary given the circumstances.

“It was about more than myself. It struck at the heart of my commitment to the rebuild and what we’re doing,” Lyon told Seven News.

“It was very undermining. We really wanted to have a strong statement and call it for what it was — a fabrication.”

“We know how the media works — we understand. But on balance, it was more important to set the record straight,” he added.

“At some point you’ve got to stand for something, and that’s what we did as a club — from the president through.

“It needed to be called out for what it was. Eddie McGuire’s done the same ... as Nathan Buckley did as well. So I think I’m in good company.”