Newborn identity: The dawn of Nathan Buckley’s Collingwood

In the same week that their arch-rivals officially let him go, the Collingwood Football Club made a powerful statement that they too were moving away from Michael Malthouse.

While the first three years of Nathan Buckley’s reign felt like he was the step-dad to a kid struggling to reconcile the departure of his biological father, in 2015 the team is finally his own.

He has a captain in his mould, and a list that he has largely built himself.

Only eight players remain from the 2011 grand final team and even more remarkably, 10 of Collingwood’s top 13 vote getters in the 2010 best and fairest have departed.

Nathan Buckley has had some notable wins as Collingwood coach (three wins against Sydney at ANZ Stadium spring to mind), but last Sunday’s unlikely victory against North Melbourne felt uniquely resonant. While triumphs over Geelong in 2013 or Essendon on Anzac Day in 2012 and 2014 felt like Collingwood had briefly recaptured a bygone era of success, Sunday’s third-quarter rampage felt like a glimpse into the future – a sneak peak of glory to come.

Jamie Elliott, a Buckley recruit, was central to the 39-point comeback, kicking five second-half goals and entrenching himself in the discussion of best small forward in the competition.

Jack Crisp, at the time seemingly just a throw-in to the Dayne Beams deal, has been a revelation, ranking second on the team in clearances, tackles and inside 50s. He’s been Collingwood’s third best midfielder this season behind Scott Pendlebury and Dane Swan.

The young defence continues to battle with a conviction incongruous to its inexperience. Marley Williams is ninth in the AFL in rebound 50s, doing his working class Lionel Messi impersonation every week of sidesteps and improbable acceleration. Jack Frost continues to take the road less travelled, making an art form out of leaving his man to pre-emptively affect contests up the field.

The youth and inconsistency of Adam Oxley and Paul Seedsman make them a week-to-week proposition, but their best is proven, and there’s cause to believe that they can be something approaching the next Heath Shaw and Harry O’Brien (hopefully minus the drink driving and Kanye West-type incoherent ramblings).

Buckley’s youth brigade has been invigorating, but they wouldn’t be succeeding without the buy-in of a veteran foundation of stars. There may be a Frost and an Elliott, but Scott Pendlebury is the true poet of this team. He’s added real interior grit and courage to his legendary silk and selflessness (first in the league for goal assists), and his weekly indifference to the constraints of the time-space continuum is as incredible as it is joyous. Aside from a bloke who wears a headband out west, Pendlebury has as credible a claim as anyone to the title of ‘best player alive’.

The underrated Collingwood story of 2015 is that Dane Swan is Dane Swan again. The 2011 Brownlow medallist had a terrible 2014, averaging a meagre 24.9 touches a game, his lowest total since 2008. He’s back up to 29.2 this season, and he’s doing it the hard way, having upped his contested possession tally by 41 per cent compared to 2014.

He’s leading the league in kicks, ranks fifth in inside 50s and, perhaps inevitably, is tenth in clangers.

More to the point, he actually looks like Dane Swan again. The game-changing acceleration and elite core strength is back. It’s fitting that it was Swan who kicked the game-winning goal Sunday, dawdling casually through his run-up to the game’s decisive kick like he was trying to kick the ball into a rubbish bin at training to win a $20 bet.

Travis Cloke is engaged, and as eternally frustrating as his inability to execute the game’s fundamental skill may be, his work-rate is back to elite 2011 levels. The class and composure of Steele Sidebottom adds a desperately needed dimension of high society to a working-class squad, and his return reinvents the dynamic of the Collingwood midfield.

Having three A-graders in the middle instead of two can often be the difference between winning and losing matches, and having Sidebottom alongside Pendlebury and Swan puts Collingwood on the right side of that equation.

The Pies entered 2015 with the sixth youngest list in the league and lined up ten players against the Kangaroos with fewer than 50 games experience – only the Gold Coast, St Kilda, the Bulldogs and a decimated Adelaide had more last weekend. In spite of their age profile, the Pies are 6-3 and sitting in the top four.

Admittedly, that record is significantly inflated by an easy fixture. But as the adage goes, you can only play who’s put in front of you, and Collingwood has played half the teams in the league and sit fourth (they’ve also already played four of the teams that finished in the eight last year).

The most encouraging sign for Collingwood has to be that they’re doing this without Ben Reid (their best defender), Levi Greenwood (their biggest off-season addition), and three top-10 draft picks in Matt Scharenberg, Nathan Freeman and Darcy Moore – none of whom have played a single AFL minute.

Regardless, this Collingwood team isn’t a contender in 2015 and the smart money says they probably won’t win a final this year. The gap between their best and their worst, especially within games, is far too large. There are still plenty of question marks.

Taylor Adams’ ferocity around the contest is admirable but the accuracy of his kicking makes Swan’s opposite foot look like Roger Federer’s forehand. Jesse White oscillates between looking like Wayne Carey circa 1996 and Wayne Carey circa 27 beers. Tom Langdon has quietly regressed, dropping from 76.5 per cent effective disposals last year to a deplorable 67 per cent this year.

But the bigger picture remains resoundingly bright. Pendlebury is 27 and Cloke is 28 – the only real timetable for Collingwood is that they need to contend while those two irreplaceable pieces are still in their primes or close to it. Given Sam Mitchell, Shaun Burgoyne and Nick Riewoldt are all turning 33 this year and still playing like stars, Collingwood’s window may be open for the next half-decade.

Overseeing that window will be Nathan Buckley. Nothing is assured, but Collingwood seems to be on the right path. And for the first time since he took over, we can now truly say that it’s Buckley’s path.