The Roar
The Roar

AFL
Advertisement

The ten steps that have taken Collingwood down the path to hell

Roar Guru
24th July, 2017
Advertisement
Collingwood's Nathan Buckley is under contrasting pressure to Carlton's Brendon Bolton. (AAP Image/David Crosling)
Roar Guru
24th July, 2017
86
2095 Reads

Collingwood is doomed to miss the finals for a fourth successive year, and are set for a lowly finish.

It wasn’t too long ago Collingwood were premiers, and had assembled a formidable unit that played exciting football that threatened to dominate the decade.

They stood at the top of the competition, a testament to judicious administration, astute list management, and excellent coaching.

So where did it all go wrong?

It’s too simple to say Collingwood banked on an inexperienced coach. Hawthorn (with Alistair Clarkson), Geelong (with Mark Thompson, and then Chris Scott), the Bulldogs (with Luke Beveridge), Sydney Swans (with Paul Roos, then John Longmire) et cetera all banked on inexperienced coaches.

Coaches aren’t born successful and experienced – they have to begin somewhere. And it’s too simple to say Collingwood didn’t conduct a proper interview process to find the best candidate. In all likelihood, Nathan Buckley would’ve aced that.

And, as far as Nathan Buckley goes, it’s too easy to point at him as solely responsible. What Collingwood have brewed is (and as only Collingwood can) a perfect storm of calamities amalgamating into a spectacular catastrophe.

Let’s look at ten factors that have landed Collingwood where they are.

Advertisement

1. The Succession Plan
Although this has been dissected ad nauseam, it’s worth re-examining, but framing it in some context.

The 2004 grand final celebrated the baton being passed from one generation to the next, with Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams emerging triumphant over Brisbane coach Leigh Matthews.

Subsequently, all the grand final coaches from that point up to the initiation of Collingwood’s succession plan were next generation coaches – Paul Roos and John Worsfold (Sydney/West Coast 2005–2006), Mark Thompson and Mark Williams (Geelong/Port Adelaide 2007), Mark Thompson and Alistair Clarkson (Geelong/Hawthorn 2008), and 2009 would turn out to be Mark Thompson and Ross Lyon (Geelong/St Kilda).

The old guard – the likes of Kevin Sheedy and Leigh Matthews – were on the way out. Football – as always – continued to evolve, and young minds were innovating.

Going into 2009, Mick Malthouse was entering his tenth year as coach of Collingwood, and – despite getting close several times (Collingwood’s mantra: ‘We were sooo close’) – hadn’t been able to haul them over the line for a flag.

He was adherent to the same boundary-hugging chipping game that had been the lynchpin of his coaching since 1984. While Mark Thompson had introduced Geelong’s daring handball; Clarkson Hawthorn’s rolling zone and short, precision kicking; and Ross Lyon St Kilda’s asphyxiating defensiveness, et cetera, Malthouse appeared to have no tricks to take Collingwood that one step further.

Malthouse himself seemed burned out early in 2009, and the team was struggling. The list was in a transitional phase.

Advertisement

So it made sense the club decided to hitch their hopes to a favourite son who spoke insightfully about the game, was a hot prospect courted by North Melbourne and Richmond, and was part of this next generation of coaches who were sweeping the competition.

So far, so good.

And then…

2. Collingwood win the 2010 flag
Only at Collingwood can a flag be the instrument of their destruction. The two flags I’ve seen (1990, and 2010) have both gradually but ultimately unravelled the club – like standing in quicksand and only realising it once it’s up to your chin.

By winning the flag, Malthouse proved he was relevant – through The Press, he was every bit the innovator as those around him.

Players who might’ve previously understood the logic of the succession would now see it as redundant. Some have posed that Collingwood should’ve hired an experienced coach as the successor.

But why hire another experienced coach – let’s say they could grab Paul Roos – when their own experienced coach was now king of the competition?

Advertisement

If Malthouse had become director of coaching as he’d been anointed to some amorphous, if not nonsensical role; or if he’d gone happily, if he’d endorsed the succession and his successor and had segued into a media career, there mightn’t have been a problem.

His charges would’ve gotten closure, seeing their coach and mentor was moving into another phase of life, and welcomed whatever came next for themselves.

But Malthouse didn’t do that.

He dug in his heels – and fair enough given he’d just coached Collingwood to a flag, and then to a powerhouse 2011. Why get rid of somebody at the top of their game? Why get rid of somebody who was coaching the best Collingwood side the modern era had seen? Why get rid of somebody who’d just taken you to a flag?

You could argue Nathan Buckley should’ve deferred, but he also had every right to expect the top job that he’d been contracted to inherit.

So the succession, which once seemed so logical, now created a schism.

Carlton coach Michael Malthouse. (AAP Image/Joe Castro)

(AAP Image/Joe Castro)

Advertisement

3. Schisms
You know what the biggest issue in this mess is? The ‘What if?’ factor.

Collingwood fans hotly debate it. Some believe Collingwood would’ve had a mini-dynasty – they finished 2nd in 2011 while immersed in the disruption of the succession, and 4th in 2012 despite all the distractions (the succession; Travis Cloke’s contract debate; an amazing run of injuries including 5 ACLs; and the death of former teammate John McCarthy – in Dane Swan’s book, My Story, he asserts that had McCarthy’s funeral fallen on the day of the 2012 Collingwood-Sydney preliminary final, a number of players probably would’ve skipped the game).

Imagine everything was running harmoniously.

Others suggest that the 2010 premiership list didn’t have another flag in them, given they lost a number of important players over the next few years – Darren Jolly, Alan Didak, Luke Ball, Leigh Brown, Leon Davis – and because the tactical advantage of The Press had been worked out.

It’s actually irrelevant to argue it, because we’ll never – and can never – know.

And that’s the actual problem – the ‘what if?’ factor, the lack of closure, which tears at the heart of the club.

4. The New Coach
Nathan Buckley was relatively untried, and had a two-year apprenticeship at a club he’d played the bulk of his life.

Advertisement

In his list, he had some testing personalities. Some of this list was still closely allied to Mick Malthouse, so you could query how dedicated they were to Buckley.

Dane Swan said in My Story it had nothing to do specifically with Buckley – any incoming coach would’ve fared similarly.

Given the exodus of players in the short term, you could infer that relationships were grating. Buckley was accused of not having the experience or capacity to deal with disparate personalities. Who knows if anybody else might’ve fared better?

Throughout 2012, Collingwood largely played listless football, only applying themselves when pressed – sometimes, that was too late.

It was little different the following year. As a player arriving at Collingwood in 1994, Buckley witnessed firsthand the way the list stagnated and grew complacent following the 1990 flag (which he touches on in his autobiography, All I Can Be).

As a coach, alarm bells must have rang. Buckley then decided to trade out to rejuvenate the list. In interviews this year, he also talked about a cultural shift.

This is when things started getting ugly.

Advertisement
Nathan Buckley Collingwood Magpies AFL 2015

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

5. List Management: Part I
Collingwood decided to rejuvenate their list during a time the expansion clubs were monopolising the best young talent, so it’s arguable whether this was the time to hit the draft and rebuild. They do it anyway.

In 2011, their first pick was pick 50 (Jackson Paine). Their next pick was 65 (Corey Gault). Some good trading netted them Jamie Elliott.

In 2012, thanks to trading out Chris Dawes and Sharrod Wellingham, they had pick 18 (Brodie Grundy), pick 19 (Ben Kennedy), pick 20 (Tim Broomhead), and pick 38 (Jackson Ramsay).

In 2013, they had pick 6 (Matthew Scharenberg), pick 10 (Nathan Freeman), pick 65 (Tom Langdon), pick 77 (Jonathan Marsh), and traded Heath Shaw for Taylor Adams, and lost Dale Thomas through free agency to Carlton.

During this period, they also acquired free agents such as Clinton Young, Quinten Lynch, and Jordan Russell, and traded for guys such as Travis Varcoe and Levi Greenwood.

Now, there’s a lot of busts there. They’ve been able to pump games into Brodie Grundy, and he’s grown into one of the competition’s leading ruckmen.

Advertisement

Similarly, they’ve gotten games into Elliott, and he’s become an elite forward, while Taylor Adams – despite occasionally wayward kicking – is a fanatical and unrelenting mid.

People complain Buckley hasn’t cultivated talent, but who else have they been able to get games into? Players aren’t necessarily falling by the wayside due to poor development; they simply haven’t been out there to play.

Later picks who’ve played continuous football – such as Brayden Maynard and Jordan de Goey – are tracking well.

Similarly with later trades – Jeremy Howe has now become an elite defender, and Travis Varcoe a hard runner.

But what about the players brought in before these guys? Scharenberg sits on 8 games, going into his fourth year of football. Nathan Freeman played zero, and moved on.

Kennedy played about twenty and also went. There are other stories. Simultaneously, other players Buckley inherited (for example Paul Seedsman) struggled and were traded out or delisted.

That these guys also struggle at new clubs suggests this isn’t exclusively about Buckley’s cultivation. The free agents (Quinten Lynch, Jordan Russell, and Clinton Young) are all gone.

Advertisement

There’s a hole in Collingwood’s list from that period where they just didn’t nail enough wins from drafts and trades.

This is the period they should’ve been forging the nucleus of their next side. But, instead, you have a rebuild without the most vital ingredient: players.

However, it does get worse.

6. List Mangement: Part II
Leaving the 2006 Collingwood vs Bulldogs Elimination Final – the Dogs won by 41 points – I thought Collingwood’s short term future looked bleak.

Within the next several years, they were bound to lose Nathan Buckley, James Clement, Anthony Rocca, Scott Burns, Paul Licuria, and Shane Wakelin – that’s a decent core of vital players.

But Collingwood’s list management over the next few years was brilliant: their 2002–03 grand final teams were dour, so in the 2005 national draft they drafted some classy mids, in the flashy and exciting Dale Thomas and classy Scott Pendlebury.

In the 2006 national draft, they grabbed talls Ben Reid, Nathan Brown, and Chris Dawes – along with father/son selection Travis Cloke, these four would become Collingwood’s premiership spine.

Advertisement

In 2008, they drafted Steele Sidebottom and Dayne Beams – talented flankers who could run through the midfield.

They nailed a number of good gets through their rookie selections, such as Heritier Lumumba, Alan Toovey, Jarryd Blair, Brent Macaffer, and Nick Maxwell.

It was stellar list management building a team from the ground up. They complemented it by picking up Luke Ball via the 2009 national draft, and Darren Jolly through a trade.

You could see the team take shape: spine, mids, flankers, ruck. Also, the mids were diverse and complemented one another – Luke Ball’s hard attack, Swan’s relentless running, Pendlebury’s poise and class, Thomas’s excitement and x-factor.

Through Buckley’s regime, the list management has been haphazard. Leigh Brown retired and was never replaced. One season later, Dawes was traded out and never replaced with a viable long-term replacement.

Reid missed almost two seasons with injury, and they never pursued a legitimate successor. Brown’s and Cloke’s contributions abruptly diminished and they were traded out, even though there were no real successors to their positions.

Collingwood picked up two good ruck prospects in Grundy and Jarrod Witts to replace the outgoing Jolly, drafted Darcy Moore as a father/son selection to play as a key forward (although he looks better as a ruck), but have otherwise relied on a series of low (or rookie) picks – such as Lachlan Keeffe, Jonathan Marsh, Corey Gault, Jack Frost, and now Henry Schade – to replace their talls.

Advertisement

The best key positioners – and especially key forwards – come early in the draft. Check it – it’s a reality: Nick Riewoldt, Buddy Franklin, Jonathan Patton, Jeremy Cameron, Jack Riewoldt, etc. This has meant first Travis Cloke was, and now Darcy Moore is, subjected to double and triple-teaming.

When Collingwood had an opportunity to snare a tall – all of Peter Wright, Jake Lever, Caleb Marchbank, and Cam McCarthy were at one time available to the Pies – Collingwood instead focused on midfielders and flankers, seemingly banking on one of their Hail Mary selections coming good.

There never seems to have been a genuine design, with the club first list-managing to stay in contention, then trying to build on the run, before embarking on a genuine rebuild.

Six years on, and the side still feels like a mishmash of players patched together from different sources.

The list has become lopsided, one that is too one-paced, and lacking genuine leg speed and skill, which is why they obviously rated somebody like Daniel Wells, despite his age and (recent) injury profile.

Skills have been questionable.

Darcy Moore Collingwood Magpies AFL 2016

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

Advertisement

7. The Gameplan
What I’ve always identified Collingwood as trying to do offensively since 2014 is to hybridise the Geelong and Hawthorn gameplans – play with flare and freewheeling to break the lines ala the Cats at their best but, when blocked up, revert to short chipping to cut through congestion, ala Hawthorn.

Unfortunately, skills often see both modes come undone. When Collingwood struggle to find run, they become fixed on the surgical kicking to try pick their way through zones, but sometimes block themselves up – particularly as opposition defenses push up – to the point they chip incessantly until they lose the ball.

Sometimes, you see what they’re trying to do – fast, scintillating football. Once upon a time, it teased that there was a maturation occurring, an evolution, and this would become their norm, the way Geelong under Thompson took a while for their gameplan to come good (even while some in the media implored them to just kick the damn ball). But now, Collingwood’s has puttered out to remain a tease.

Defensively, they’re too often cut open on the counter-attack, or giving opponents unpressured space, so they can waltz through unopposed. While gun opposition mids are sometimes minded – they rightly pay respect to Joel Selwood – others are ignored, even as they amass possessions and create opportunities.

8. A Lack of Evolution
Too many of the same problems have recurred over the last four seasons: the same fanatical endeavor undone by a lack of skill, the same stagnation where the players find themselves boxed in, the same disembowelment from a counter attack, and the same lack of forward structure.

Obviously, Buckley and Collingwood have to operate within their own resources (incorporating availability of players, experience, needs), as well as work within the parameters of the competition.

It’s very easy to say they should go out and get a key forward. But when you factor in forwards on the market, cost, Collingwood’s own capacity to secure them (in terms of what they have to offer), you do probably work your way down the list and end up with a Jesse White or Chris Mayne.

Advertisement

But that in itself is endemic of the greater issue – constantly trying to address urgent needs due to a lack of foresight and an overarching plan that mapped out this tenure.

Some of that is pure bad luck. You just wouldn’t expect a Ben Reid to be effectively injured for two years.

But some of it is just bad planning, which has then relied on a moneyball approach to find players to execute a gameplan they seem – going on the proof of the last several years – unable to sustain.

Jesse White Collingwood Magpies AFL 2016

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

9. A Lack of Adaptability
So things haven’t changed. Understandably, Nathan Buckley is a strong character – if you’ve read his book All I Can Be, he forged himself into a champion footballer by attacking his goals, resetting them, attacking them again, and continuing to strive to make himself better. Results followed.

But you can’t do that with a team because there are so many working parts, so many disparate personalities, so many factors to incorporate.

So you have to adapt.

Advertisement

But – and this is just an outsider’s view – it seems as if Buckley has attacked coaching with the same single-minded determination that turned him into a champion footballer, expecting sheer determination and hard work to blossom into long-term results, only to be teased by that potential, and then undone by the same issues.

Not everybody responds the same to a blanket approach, and while following any Collingwood loss we have heard about how they haven’t played they wanted to, surely – by this stage – they should be questioning if they can play that way, week in, week out.

The truth just might be they can’t, and they should be looking to play a different way given the personnel at their disposal.

Maybe internally they are seduced by their own potential – there’s always meritorious wins (you just have to look at last weekend) which buoy hopes. Unfortunately, they’re regularly been followed by lacklustre performances and inexplicable losses.

10. Conclusion
I was a big fan of Buckley to succeed, and still am, although it seems a bit late for fairy tales. Has his tenure been successful? No. But for too many, that’s the be-all and end-all – that it begins and ends with Buckley.

If you look over Collingwood in the last six years, it’s not uniquely one factor that’s the issue, but that they’ve been misfiring in so many areas, and it’s all become so inextricably intertwined that you have are all these chicken and the egg situations.

Had they gotten other components right, maybe the rest would’ve fallen into place. But it just seems they’re all compromised, and contributing to a lack of productivity and growth in other areas, which systematically affects anybody from progressing.

Advertisement

Despite the shape of the list there has been (until this year) an ongoing issue with injuries (so long, that they need to examine if it’s bad luck or there’s a common denominator), an inability to build continuity and experience in the best 22 over an extended period, the revolving door of football managers, the unanticipated decline of players who they’d probably banked on having longer careers now leaving gaping holes in the side, the lack of long-term planning underpinning the list management, a seeming fanaticism with picking up midfielders and, off field, arguably a loss of focus by diversifying.

So where do they go from here?

It would be simple to sack Buckley and use that as the seeming panacea for all Collingwood’s woes.

There’s a lot going on at Collingwood. A lot. Eddie McGuire’s talked about the club performing an internal review. If that’s not enough, the suggestion might be to take up these issues at an AGM, or for the members to exhibit their dissatisfaction.

But that’s all rhetoric, because if that’s what salvation’s coming down to, then it’s evident that those at the club aren’t seeing anything objectively.

Collingwood is just a club in pieces. They used to fit, and contributed to a greater whole. But now they’re just a scattered mess on the floor of the competition.

close