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The Collingwood Magpies have re-signed Nathan Buckley as the senior coach until the end of 2019 despite a disappointing season that saw them finish thirteenth.
Collingwood football manager Geoff Walsh said of Buckley “he’s not perfect” as the Magpies held a press conference to announce his re-signing. Walsh, you just said a mouthful.
The decision comes after a strong finish to the season for the Pies who recorded four wins and a draw with the minor premiers from their last seven games.
On Saturday they capped off 2017 with an upset win over Melbourne at the MCG, which had the added schadenfreudian benefit of denying the Dees a finals berth.
However, there’ll surely be some debate to be had as to whether or not a promising finish to season was enough to justify a Buckley extension give Collingwood’s unmistakble downward slope under his tenure.
I have said during the year that Buckley deserved the chance to bring a team that is still a work-in-progress to fruition, although I’ll admit I’m surprised that he has gotten it.
After all, I predicted he was going to get the sack just four days ago, but if you’ve been reading me regularly this year you’ll know that everything I predict is wrong forever.
Collingwood recently finished an extensive internal review of their football department, identifying a number of areas for improvement.
Buckley’s first task now that his future is secure will be to improve skills across the board, as this was identified as a major deficiency.
The Magpies are also looking to provide Buckley with an experienced mentor, so it will be interesting to see who takes up that role.
Those won’t be the only changes Collingwood looks to make though, with a restructure of the list management team and review of salary cap high up on the agenda.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the Pies can make the right changes and in doing so give Buckley an opportunity to thrive and show us a new level of high performance.
That might sound like a delusion pie-in-the-sky fantasy, but it’s exactly what Richmond managed to do at the end of 2016, and has led to a top-four finish this year.
Regardless, here will no doubt be concern among Collingwood fans – and optimism among the rest of the world – that all the Pies have done is sign themselves up for two more years of mediocrity.
Will we be right back here again in 2019? Only time will tell.
(AAP Image/Julian Smith)
“The last few years have shown how tough this competition is and we have not bounced as quickly as we had planned. In that time the resilience and commitment of the players and staff hasn’t wavered. In particular, we are blessed with a core group of emerging leaders who will drive our prospects in coming years,” Buckley said.
“We do not own the right to success, so we will chase it with all we have. Reinforcing the things we do well and continually challenging each other to find better ways. Above all, we will value and support each of our people as we go about our business.”
“We still have a lot of work to do and I’m up for that challenge.”
Eddie McGuire gave Buckley his own personal thumbs up, saying that he was the right choice to be the senior coach at Collingwood going forward.
“We have seen the way this list plays for Nathan. He is a man of the highest integrity, he has compassion for his players on and off the field, he is uncompromising in his commitment to the role and we believe he is taking this group in the right direction,” McGuire said.
“As a club we instigated a list rebuild following our 2013 campaign and Nathan has been exemplary in his commitment to developing the young talent brought on to our list and creating a team-first ethos that we believe will take us back to where we want to be as a club.
“The club has taken the One Collingwood blueprint process very seriously and the Board took time to consider all the information presented at our meeting on Tuesday night. With the benefit of that in-depth report we, as a Board, believe Nathan is the right person to lead this club forward.”