Collingwood’s football department is the town bicycle – everyone’s had a ride! – and that’s had an unmistakable impact on what has become a Frankenstein playing list. What can we do to turn it around?

AFL list management series
18 – Brisbane Lions
17 – Gold Coast Suns
16 – Carlton Blues
15 – North Melbourne Kangaroos
14 – Fremantle Dockers
12 – Hawthorn Hawks
11 – St Kilda Saints
10 – Western Bulldogs
9 – Melbourne Demons
8 – Essendon Bombers
7 – Port Adelaide Power
6 – West Coast Eagles
5 – Sydney Swans
4 – GWS Giants
3 – Geelong Cats

2017 in short

Collingwood’s season in a way started the second Nathan Buckley said he expected to get the sack if he didn’t make finals, but as it turns out that’s not what happened at all.

The Pies fell well short of a finals berth in the end, but Buckley got a new two-year deal earlier this week – go figure.

They did finish the year in fairly good form, and fans will take a certain schaudenfreudian joy in their final-round win over Melbourne that ruined the Demons’ finals chances.

For a more comprehensive review of Collingwood’s season, check out this piece by Stirling Coates.

Coach

If you haven’t heard some significant debate about Nathan Buckley’s new two-year contract to coach the Pies until the end of 2019, what rock are you living under and may I join you?

I haven’t done the maths but I imagine if you printed out all the Nathan Buckley thinkpieces of the last six years and sewed them together you could blanket the entire nation of Australia.

And let’s not pretend that I’m even remotely innocent in that, as I’ve written about him as much if not more than most, and not only in this year as well.

In particular I wrote this piece about him a week ago which, while it incorrectly predicts he’ll be sacked, does otherwise sum up my most recent thoughts about his tenure at Collingwood.

The short version would be that he’s been some distance off the mark in his time at the Pies, but no area of the club has performed well either, and it’s hard to tell from the outside who is doing the most damage.

We’ll talk about Collingwood’s list management to come, but the simple fact is that it has been diabolical.

On the other hand, a lot of players at the Pies just don’t seem to live up to expectation. Is that the coach? Is it the players? Or do we just overrate them because they’re at the biggest club in the country? Hard to say.

As we’ll discuss further, Collingwood’s list is several years off the point where it should be considered ready for premiership contention again, and even that is something of a best-case scenario.

I’m not entirely against the Buckley extension because I do believe there have been unrealisitic expectations on him given the state of the playing list.

A senior coach shouldn’t be sacked without genuinely being given the time to mould a team together, and while Buckley has been around a while the chaos in the footy department has prevented that.

Maybe what ultimately comes to be under his tenure won’t be anything particularly inspiring, but he at least deserves a chance to try to put it together.

However that could take a significantly long period of time to happen depending on how the Pies plan to manage their list, and a two-year deal suggests they have no intention of committing to Buckley for as long as it takes.

Captain

Scott Pendlebury has been captaining the Pies for a few years now and from the outer, doesn’t seem to be doing a particularly good or particularly bad job of it – they have been years of mediocrity, but there’s a lot more going on the club contributing to that than merely in the player leadership.

What was a notable turn of events this year is that once Pendlebury had a season-ending injury, Collingwood’s form actually improved markedly. There’s every chance that may just be a coincidence, though.

Still, it appears that Taylor Adams is likely the next captain of the club and he’s getting very close to the point where you’d be happy to hand him the reigns.

In an ideal scenario that would probably still be two years away or so, but I would consider having some heart-to-hearts with the players to make sure they still rate Pendles’ leadership as all that before blindly locking him in for 2018.

List management

Collingwood has been through a revolving door of football bosses during Buckley’s time as a coach and as a result the current state of their list has at least half a dozen different sets of prints on it.

The old saying that too many cooks spoil the broth is perfectly apt here, and many of the decisions that are coming back to bite Collingwood were made by people who are no longer there, but they must be lived with all the same.

As a result the list is a bit of a Frankenstein. Collingwood have been one of the most active teams at the trade table over the past few years but there hasn’t been any consistent strategy – one year we’re acquiring draft picks, one year it’s selling the farm for Adam Treloar, the next we’re picking up Chris Mayne and Daniel Wells.

Eddie McGuire’s claim while re-signing Buckley that the club “began a rebuild” in 2013 is blatantly false. There’s been some aspects of rebuilding but there’s also been some of topping up and some that are just inexplicable.

Buckley himself said just yesterday that the $2 million, four-year deal that recruited Chris Mayne was a “mix-up” in the football department. How on earth does any competently-run business accidentally make a four-year commitment to spend two million dollars?

The result is a list that doesn’t offer any clear idea of what the future should look like for Collingwood, or when they should be aiming for a return to finals or premiership contention. For mine, there are two ways to go about it – the short term, or the long term.

In the short term we would be cutting off the list above Jeremy Howe – the players older than that aren’t going to be in the club’s next flag. Unfortunately that means Pendles. It also means some good but unreliable players in Daniel Wells and Ben Reid.

This leaves Howe (27) and Steele Sidebottom (26) as Collingwood’s veterans when they next challenge in say 2020, followed by the likes of Alex Fasolo, Jamie Elliott (both 25), Adam Treloar (24), Will Hoskin-Elliott, Taylor Adams and Brodie Grundy (all 23) as Collingwood’s mature leadership core.

By this point, the youth like Matthew Scharenberg, James Aish, Darcy Moore, Jordan De Goey, Tom Phillips (all 21) and Brayden Maynard (20) ought to be coming into their prime as well.

What’s concerning in this model is that there’s a lot of gaps to fill and only two or three years to fill them. This mix of players has some good midfield strength, but lacks a genuine key defender and has only Darcy Moore as a tall forward target.

Can the Pies add three premiership-grade mature key position players in the next three years? Probably no, which is why I favour the longer approach.

In that scenario, we instead cut off the team above Fasolo and Elliott. This, unfortunately, puts Howe and Sidebottom above the cut-off too, which is harsh because they’re both excellent players, however, it does give the Pies more time to acquire the players they need to make this team work, and gives the youth crop more time to come good.

In this scenario, they’re instead aiming to be premiership contention again around say 2022, although ideally making finals again a little while before that.

One thing to be concerned about is the lack of any real proven talent younger than Brayden Maynard on the list – this is what happens when you burn two top ten picks to secure someone like Adam Treloar.

One one hand, Collingwood should be aiming to trade in some good players in this age group to ensure a steady stream of organic improvement. On the other hand, doing so will only cost them more draft picks and slightly delay the talent gap rather than solve it.

Collingwood players by age
Daniel Wells – 32yr 6mth
Lynden Dunn – 30yr 3mth
Tyson Goldsack – 30yr 3mth
Scott Pendlebury – 29yr 7mth
Jesse White – 29yr 7mth
Travis Varcoe – 29yr 4mth
Chris Mayne – 28yr 9mth
Levi Greenwood – 28yr 6mth
Ben Reid – 28yr 4mth
Jarryd Blair – 27yr 4mth
Lachlan Keefe – 27yr 4mth
Jeremy Howe – 27yr 2mth
Steele Sidebottom – 26yr 7mth
Mason Cox (R) – 26yr 5mth
Ben Sinclair – 25yr 11mth
Josh Thomas (R) – 25yr 11mth
Alex Fasolo – 25yr 2mth
Jamie Elliott – 25yr
Adam Oxley – 24yr 10mth
Adam Treloar – 24yr 5mth
Rupert Wills – 24yr 3mth
Will Hoskin-Elliott – 23yr 11mth
Taylor Adams – 23yr 11mth
Jack Crisp – 23yr 10mth
Henry Schade (R) – 23yr 10mth
Josh Smith – 23yr 7mth
Tim Broomhead – 23yr 5mth
Brodie Grundy – 23yr 4mth
Tom Langdon – 23yr 2mth
Jackson Ramsay – 22yr 9mth
Matthew Scharenberg – 21yr 11mth
James Aish – 21yr 9mth
Darcy Moore – 21yr 7mth
Jordan De Goey – 21yr 5mth
Tom Phillips – 21yr 3mth
Brayden Maynard – 20yr 11mth
Ben Crocker – 20yr 6mth
Mitch McCarthy (R) – 19yr 10mth
Brayden Sier – 19yr 8mth
Callum Brown – 19yr 4mth
Sam McLarty – 19yr 3mth
Liam Mackie (R) – 19yr
Max Lynch (R) – 18yr 11mth
Kayle Kirby – 18yr 10mth
Josh Daicos – 18yr 9mth

From a contract perspective, the Pies only real flight risk this year is Mason Cox and he wouldn’t be any great loss as he’s not ever likely to replace Brodie Grundy as the number one ruck, and depth rucks are easy enough to acquire.

Tom Phillips would be a good one to get signed up as soon as possible too. He doesn’t seem likely to be poached by other clubs, but you wouldn’t want to take the risk of leaving him on the market too long.

In the 2018 group there are a number of young players they’ll need to re-sign, the only one I would be concerned about is Matthew Scharenberg who will get calls from both South Australian clubs sooner or later, so he must be the top priority.

Generally speaking a lot of current Collingwood players are either Victorian boys who have no reason to leave, or players who have already chosen to be there by asking for a trade, so they should be able to retain them more of than not.

Collingwood players by contract status
2021
Adam Treloar

2020
Brodie Grundy
Chris Mayne
Scott Pendlebury
Steele Sidebottom

2019
Taylor Adams
Jack Crisp
Will Hoskin-Elliott
Brayden Maynard
Daniel Wells

2018
James Aish
Tim Broomhead
Callum Brown
Josh Daicos
Jordan De Goey
Jamie Elliott
Alex Fasolo
Levi Greenwood
Jeremy Howe
Kayle Kirby
Tom Langdon
Sam McLarty
Darcy Moore
Adam Oxley
Ben Reid
Matthew Scharenberg

Out of contract
Jarryd Blair
Mason Cox (R)
Ben Crocker
Tyson Goldsack
Lachlan Keefe
Max Lynch (R)
Liam Mackie (R)
Mitch McCarthy (R)
Tom Phillips
Jackson Ramsay
Henry Schade (R)
Josh Smith
Brayden Sier
Ben Sinclair
Josh Thomas (R)
Travis Varcoe
Jesse White
Rupert Wills

Unconfirmed
Lynden Dunn

Delistings and retirements

Jesse White has already announced his retirement from the game. Collingwood haven’t made any other formal list decisions as yet.

Ben Crocker, Tom Phillips, Josh Smith and Ben Sinclair likely all get kept on in the hopes they can develop into something good, and Henry Schade and Josh Thomas should get promotions to the senior list. Travis Varcoe probably gets another run, too.

Everyone else, I’d be worried.

Free agency

Tyson Goldsack (unrestricted)
Lachlan Keeffe (unrestricted)
Ben Sinclair (unrestricted)

You wouldn’t expect any of these players to be the target of other clubs, so they’ll all likely either remain at Collingwood or be cut.

In terms of trying to get more talent on their list, free agency is an obvious avenue for Collingwood since it means getting talent through the door without having to give up draft picks.

However the fact that players must wait at least eight years for free agency means most of the talent is currently older than what really fits in the area Collingwood should be targetting.

If they were to pick up a few talents now it might give them a temporary boost, but I suspect it would fall short of making them a genuine flag chance.

Personally, I would be leaving aside free agency this year – as I expect the Pies will – and loading up a mega-offer to target Tom Lynch in 2018.

Trade period

The only player likely to leave the club this year by trade is Mason Cox, and the Pies wouldn’t likely recieve any significant compensation for his departure.

There is an argument that they should consider proactively trading someone in their older generation elsewhere to acquire more draft picks, if they’re ready to commit to a long-term list plan.

Steele Sidebottom would be the likely candidate here – not so crucial to the club as to be a culture-ruining trade, but good enough and young enough to secure a first-round pick.

However, I’d be surprised if the Pies decide to go down that route.

In terms of players who could be brought in, they’ve been linked to all of Jacob Hopper, Devon Smith, and Stewart Crameri.

Hopper and Smith would be fine additions that would fit well into the age bracket the Pies are looking for, but they’re really just robbing Peter to pay Paul if they trade away their high draft picks to secure them.

Collingwood certainly do need a second tall forward to partner with Darcy Moore, and a mature would be good as they would take the No.1 mantle and let Moore have space to develop.

That player is not Stewart Crameri though, who is too short to be a genuine key forward and has played only two games in the last two seasons. Signing him feels like Quinten Lynch all over again (or Jesse White, or Chris Mayne).

The Pies were also linked to Jake Lever for a while. He’s probably the one player that would be worth selling the farm for, as someone they could build their backline around for a decade to come. He seems likely to snub them and go to Melbourne, though.

Draft

First three rounds: 6, 37.

The Pies’ draft position this year has already been weakened by having traded a future pick for Will Hoskin-Elliott last year, which again means the amount of talent they can bring into the club will be limited.

A tall would be ideal with their first pick and if Jarrod Brander is still available there I would expect they snap him up.

If not though then it’s debatable whether or not there are other talls in the draft this year that should go that early, so they might look at a midfielder instead in this case, which is not their greatest need but always a good area to build depth in.

Outlook

Collingwood’s list at the moment is a bit of a hatchet job, one that too many different people have taken an axe to without a shared vision of what they’re trying to build.

Exactly what Collingwood needs to do next is hard to say, because there’s a large gap between where they are and where they want to be, and many different ways to get there.

What is needed more than anything else is a philosophy change – accept that there needs to be a long term plan in place, a shared vision among all those involved at the club, and that it might well take a decent length of time to get there.

If the club looks only to short term fixes and the next two or so years in advance then they will continue to trip themselves up in the same way they repeatedly have under Nathan Buckley’s reign.

The fact that their review indicated the need for a new salary cap model and restructure of the list management team does suggest that Collingwood are aware of this and will make changes to combat it. Good luck to them if so.

The shortest turnaround I can see happening for the Pies is that if they made a mega trade for Jake Lever this year (say pick 6 and Steele Sidebottom for Jake Lever and the Crows’ first), then signed Tom J Lynch next year, they could reasonably target finals in 2019 and flag contention soon after.

That’s a remarkably unlikely scenario though and I suspect a much lengthier strategy will need to be put into place to really return them to the flag hunt.