COLLINGWOOD and Travis Cloke's management met on Monday night as the power forward's contract saga rolled on.

Coach Nathan Buckley remains confident Cloke will remain a Magpie and doesn't believe his contract situation is as distracting as Geelong star Gary Ablett's was two years ago.

Former Geelong coach Mark Thompson told Fox Footy on Monday night that Ablett's unsigned status in 2010 ahead of his eventual departure for Gold Coast was a distraction for the Cats.

"Every time a player fronted the media … we were really scheduling our media appointments and trying to reduce them because we knew that with every player that faced [the media], the first question he was asked was the Gary one," Thompson told AFL 360.

"Every time I went up it got mentioned and in the end it's not about one person."

But Buckley insisted that Cloke's situation saga was not the same.

"I watched Bomber's comments in that regard … I don't have the same fears he may have had about Gary," Buckley said.

"I'm very confident we'll retain all of the players we want to retain.

"Things have been far more amicable than people give credence to - it's just part of the ongoing discussions."

Earlier on Tuesday, club president Eddie McGuire told Triple M he was confident the Pies would reach an agreement with Cloke over a new deal with "a bit of give and take.

"It was a meeting last night and I walked away confident that everyone is trying to get to the same place,'' McGuire said. 

"I think there are a number of clubs that have made contact and said if it falls over we'd then be interested in talking.

"There's a couple that have been a bit more pro-active than that.

"Fremantle had a dip. I think Melbourne have had a go with a very long-term contract.

"Clokey wants to stay with us, we want him to say.

"If we can get to a position were everyone's happy, always a bit of give and take, we'll get this knocked over."
 
Buckley admitted frustration that the Cloke negotiations were taking media attention away from the game.

"I think what happens is the focus goes away from what really matters at a footy club and that is the collective and the team focus," Buckley said.

"And, the fact we're playing an opponent this weekend in a Grand Final rematch, although you wouldn't know who we're playing on the weekend at the moment because all the focus has been on an individual or one particular situation.

"As coaches and players at the club over the last couple of days, we've been fully focused on reviewing our performance on the weekend and finding out why we didn't perform as well as we would have liked and preparing to remedy that on Saturday night."

Jennifer Witham is a reporter for AFL Media. Follow her on Twitter @AFL_JenWitham.