MICK Malthouse has announced that he won't be at Collingwood in any capacity in 2012.

Under the succession plan conceived by Magpies president Eddie McGuire in 2009, the veteran coach was to have moved into a director of coaching role for the next three seasons as Nathan Buckley assumed the senior coaching position.

But in his post-match media conference after Collingwood lost the Grand Final by 38 points to Geelong, Malthouse revealed that he would not be fulfilling his contract.

"I think the role by name sounded pretty good, but in reality I'm not 100 per cent sure that I would be of value to the football club," Malthouse said.

"In fairness to everyone at the football club, I think they need a fresh start.

"And I can't give them that fresh start from my position in that role.

"I think those that are at the football club need a bit of space to go in the direction that they feel is going to take the club forward.

"I could be selfish and stay on. I could be demanding and stay in the role and force it to be something … but I just don't see any point."

McGuire said he had known Malthouse was leaving for "a fair while", and that the Magpies would "make some announcements" in the next week or so.

"Let's just get through this year, look back, celebrate the upsides, burn deeply within on the outcome today," he said.

"We've already had some meetings behind closed doors, myself and Geoff Walsh and Gary Pert, and we know what we're doing. There's no surprises.

"I think it's terrible with what's been going in recent times with appointments that have been leaked out by clubs and things like that that to try and rain on the parade.

"You let your opponents have their moment as well so we want Geelong to dominate the headlines for the next three days, a week, whatever it is you dominate the headlines after a win, they deserve the upside.

"We'll make our announcements in due course.

"It would have be nice for him to stay on in the position but I've known for a fair while he was oscillating on that position and we've made appropriate steps to be able to move forward without breaking stride," McGuire said.

"The whole idea of why there was never anything in concrete and all those things was because it was very emotional, the whole thing.

"[This] underlines what we did two years ago. Mick is finished. He's hit the wall mentally, emotionally. He gave everything. There's no more."