AFL legend Kevin Sheedy has urged Mark Harvey to return to coaching.
Sheedy said the former Fremantle coach still had much to offer.
The Dockers ruthlessly sacked Harvey at the end of 2011 and brought in Ross Lyon.
Harvey then became an assistant at Brisbane and had the caretaker role at the end of last season after Michael Voss was sacked.
Harvey has since returned to Perth, where he is pursuing business interests as well as working as a part-time AFL commentator.
“(You lifted) Fremantle to a position where they had a chance,” Sheedy said on Thursday.
“You’re a great coach, you will be a great coach and don’t forget that.
“You’re a very important person in football and you will come back to coach an AFL club sooner rather than later.
“Never lose sight of that fact and it will be your decision, no one else’s.”
Sheedy was speaking at Essendon’s Hall Of Fame lunch, where Harvey was one of the inductees.
Sheedy coached him throughout his 206-game playing career at Essendon.
Harvey then was an assistant coach under Sheedy before going to Fremantle.
Harvey said he was yet to decide whether he would return to the AFL.
“I have to make a decision … by the end of this year, really, if I get back into coaching or I don’t,” he said.
“I felt like there was unfinished business as a senior coach.
“We know the industry, a lot of young coaches coming along. We’ll see what happens.”
The other inductees on Thursday were veteran club doctor Bruce Reid, former captain Gary O’Donnell, Alec Epis and Barry Capuano.
Harry Hunter, a premiership player in the 1920s, was made a club legend.
Reid’s honour comes after the tumultuous events of last year, when he was a central figure in the club’s supplements crisis.
The AFL originally charged Reid but, eventually, he was cleared.
There was also speculation at the end of last season that Reid would leave his post as Essendon club doctor, a role he has held since 1982.
But Reid, a very popular figure at Essendon, said he had no plans to leave the position.
“It sounds pathetic, but you just look at it every year,” he said.
“You see what the club wants; you see what you want.”
Reid added he was “seriously honoured and seriously humbled” to be made a member of the club’s hall of fame.