The Roosters had planned to announce their senior coach this week, but have been left with no options after the final two candidates declined the job in a matter of days.

Club chief executive officer Mark Patterson confirmed on Thursday the search for the coach had been down to two candidates, but both were now out of the picture.

However, Patterson refused to be drawn on their identities.

He did reveal one of the final two took a job at an AFL club (North Ballarat Rebels coach David Loader announced his new development role with North Melbourne on Wednesday), but Patterson said the other candidate declined the job for unspecified reasons.

The Courier understands sacked coach Gerard FitzGerald was the other of the final two candidates, although negotiations broke down.

Patterson said the club was “disappointed” not to announce a senior coach and said the process would now be pushed back a number of weeks.

However, he did not feel the last three months searching for a coach had been a waste.

“We’re not back to square one, we’ve spoken to about 45 different coaches throughout the process,” Patterson said.

“We would have preferred to be naming a coach today but unfortunately that hasn’t happened.”

Patterson also said he did not feel the delay would impact negatively on the retention of players.

Mainstay Liam Hoy had already announced he was walking out on the club to play for Redan, but Patterson said that would have happened either way.

The players and all staff were updated on the situation on Thursday morning after Wednesday night’s board meeting.

“It won’t impact negatively on the playing group, we’ve already spoken to the players,” he said. “Liam Hoy was leaving either way.”

“We’re back in the market and we’re going to start the search again and we’re confident we will still find a great coach.”

Patterson said the club had created a new role to work alongside whoever the new coach would be, to be known as the General Manager of Football.

Nobody has yet been appointed to the newly-formed role, which will work in conjunction with existing football manager Marg Richards.

The primary responsibilities of the role shall include list management and recruiting. Patterson likened the role to that of Neil Balme at Geelong, who was appointed football operations manager to aid Mark Tjompson.

There has been no time frame put on the announcement of the new coach.

The coach search started in June when FitzGerald, the veteran triple-premiership coach, was told his contract would not be renewed.

Three-time premiership coach Mick Malthouse was appointed in July to oversee the selection panel, which was chosen by the board.