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Premiers, runners up, fourth, eighth. Collingwood’s final ladder positions over the last four years had appeared to be consistent with that of a team on a downward trajectory.
The early parts of season 2014 suggested that the Pies were ready to once again establish themselves as one of the best teams in the competition. After Round 12, they could be found in their customary perch in the top four.
However, after losing six of their last eight games, they are now positioned in ninth and are facing a huge struggle to stay in the race for September.
Collingwood’s form over the last two months has led even the most ardent of Pies fans to question the direction of the club and to reluctantly question the coaching of favourite son Nathan Buckley.
The most frequent criticism of Buckley sounds something like this, ‘He’s inherited one of the youngest premiership winning lists of all time and in three years he’s turned it into one that can’t even get to the finals.’
What people in this camp neglect to mention is the fact that Collingwood’s current list is merely a shell of the list left behind by Mick Malthouse after the 2011 season.
The Pies have made thirty-four changes to their list since the end of 2011, when Buckley took over as senior coach. Only the Demons have also made more than thirty list changes in this time period, and not even they have made as many changes as the Pies.
No need to explain how terrible Melbourne has been over this period.
It is highly unusual for a club to undergo this kind of radical list overhaul while remaining in finals contention. Such a degree of list turnover is generally exclusively prevalent in teams at the bottom of the ladder.
The most recurrent criticism of Buckley is also the major reason why we should be patient with Collingwood – Buckley inherited his list, he didn’t choose it. Bucks has been at the helm for almost three years now, but only at the beginning of his third year did he have the list that he desired at his disposal.
I would compel anyone to remove the following from any team and see if that team improves immediately: a two-time premiership ruckman, a best and fairest winner and two time All-Australian midfielder/goalsneak, a former number two draft pick in the prime of his career who was singled out by Ross Lyon as the best midfielder in the game only three years ago and a dashing half back flanker considered so dangerous he was the first Collingwood player to be tagged every week.
Scary part is, those guys were only last year’s departures.
Allowing these experienced players – Darren Jolly, Alan Didak, Dale Thomas and Heath Shaw, to move on from the club at the end of 2013 was a bold statement by Buckley, and the Pies were always going to suffer something of a short term drop off in 2014 as a result. It was all part of the plan.
In total, only thirteen of the twenty-three players who represented Collingwood in the 2010 grand finals remain on the list. That is a remarkable number, considering that almost half of such a young premiership team has left the club within four years.
With this being the case, and with the Pies stocking up on three first round draft picks in 2012 and two top ten picks in 2013, the long term approach was always going to be the way in which the Pies would reclaim the finals spot that they have owned in recent times.
When asked if their team could conceivably make a premiership push in 2014, both Buckley and Gary Pert said that it was indeed possible, raising expectations for this season. Deep down however, they are both well and truly aware of the path that the club is taking and really, what else could they have said? Being the Magpies comes with certain expectations and they were merely trying to satisfy their rabid fan-base, but if the club misses September for one season, they won’t mind.
Collingwood have clearly targeted 2016/17 as the opening of a fresh premiership window, soon enough that the likes of Scott Pendlebury (will be 28 at the start of the 2016 season), Travis Cloke (29), Dayne Beams (26) and Steele Sidebottom (25) will still be young enough to be key contributors, but far enough into the future that Magpie youngsters will be afforded time to develop.
On the weekend, the Pies sent a team to Perth that included no less than nine players with fewer than fifty games’ experience to their names. For the sake of comparison, the Saints were also represented by nine players who had played fewer than fifty games, as were the Dogs and Demons.
Not one of those teams currently sits higher than fourteenth on the ladder, while Collingwood are jostling for a finals position.
If you actually think about it, the fact that Collingwood has a list profile similar to that of the weakest teams in the league yet has managed to stay in top eight contention all season is an incredible feat. Nathan Buckley should be lauded instead of doubted and ridiculed.
In two or three years’ time, when this group has developed and matured, 2014 will be remembered as nothing more than a speed bump for the Pies.
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