It’s truly remarkable the level of support Nathan Buckley enjoys within the media landscape.
While new coaches without the heralded playing careers like David Teague and Ben Rutten have been rinsed through the media cycle, Buckley continues to escape any real scrutiny.
To paraphrase Tony Jones yesterday on the Sunday Footy Show, he put it to the panel to let him go beyond this year because who will do a better job?
As the panel agreed only Matthew Lloyd had the gumption to ask why on earth Buckley should get a reprieve?
Surely there are a plethora of assistants out there who are worth a shot, having done excellent apprenticeships at rival clubs?
It remains fascinating and rage-inducing for Collingwood members why no one is putting the hard questions to Buckley about his long-term failure as the Collingwood coach.
Following two grand finals and a premiership under Mick Malthouse, Buckley was handed the keys to a Ferrari and would surely have been the envy of every assistant coach in the land. With an incredible list to choose from and an amazing level of support and financial backing, Buckley proceeded to dismantle a once-great team.
(Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
From 2012 to 2017, he took the team steadily down the ladder, progressively getting worse every season.
The 2018 season was the outlier. From outside the eight, Buckley took the team to within a kick of a premiership and had a sensational year. Many fell over themselves in praising Buckley and fawning over his changed coaching style. While I’m not suggesting Buckley didn’t have a terrific year in the coaches’ box, he was absolutely not on his own.
Closer inspection reveals that Justin Longmuir should have been accepting many of the plaudits as a key assistant and someone rightly recognised as being the brain behind the Magpies’ defensive set-up and drive into attack during 2018. It is no coincidence that once he was poached by Fremantle, the performances began to again steadily decline under Buckley, Brenton Sanderson and Robert Harvey.
In 2019 and 2020 they were ousted from the finals earlier than expected, or to be generous, met expectations without exceeding them. As we know this season is now an unmitigated disaster.
That means that over his decade-long tenure, Nathan Buckley has only managed to outperform expectations in a single season. That is an abysmal record and no other coach in the league over that decade would have kept their job.
Outside of the coaches’ box failures Buckley has to take some responsibility for a number of club issues including the Adam Treloar trade debacle. While the back office rightly has taken the heat for being unable to complete a basic profit-and-loss spreadsheet, there were any number of players who could have been moved instead of Treloar and the way Buckley handled the situation was appalling.
Buckley incorrectly identified Treloar as expendable and while he continues to be obsessed in post-match interviews about “inside pressure” and “winning the ball at the coalface”, clubs have moved past this and now recognise leg speed and metres gained as keys to success.
Buckley failed to see Treloar’s worth and is paying handsomely as Collingwood’s number one ball mover was traded for a packet of peanuts and the Pies must now continue to pay Treloar until 2024.
(Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images)
Again, while the salary cap was not his doing, the manner in which Treloar left the club and how it has turned Collingwood’s midfield into a snail brigade certainly is.
This is before even doing a deep dive into what exactly the senior coach knew about the treatment of Heritier Lumumba and how it led to the implosion of the president’s tenure and the moral fibre of the club being questioned.
Buckley is also responsible for his coaching staff and his decision to hire his bestie in Brenton Sanderson as his senior assistant smacks of the boys-club mentality.
No one in the media appears brave enough to question how many genuinely hard conversations the two have and how often Buckley is challenged by his assistants. Sanderson is another with a horrendous senior coaching record and appears to be the ultimate yes man.
Clearly the club needs to undertake an entire rebuild.
Anyone on the list under the age of 23 must be given a chance to perform. Anyone over 28 (outside of Scott Pendlebury) must be reviewed to determine what value they bring by staying and could be moved on unless they are on a veteran’s minimum.
I was laughed at by fellow Magpies enthusiasts when I suggested it was time to cash in our chips for Jordan De Goey at the end of 2019 for a couple of strong draft picks. Now you’d be lucky to get a single pick in the top 25 given his all hype, no substance performances following the 2018 campaign and pending court case.
Even still, De Goey, Steele Sidebottom, Jack Crisp, Jeremy Howe and Brayden Maynard are players with currency other clubs may part with picks for.
(Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
Obviously, the club has completely hamstrung itself by giving Brodie Grundy the better part of a decade to destroy the salary cap. His performances continue to be worth a quarter of what he is being paid.
Whether they can find a suitor to salary dump his bloated contract on will mean another Treloar scenario whereby a give-away of picks or partially paying his salary will need to occur. Oh, what glorious times us Collingwood members live in, having Ned Guy at the helm of our recruiting!
Given the aforementioned track record, how on earth can any argument about Buckley deserving another contract stack up?
In recent times the best example of someone being given this long without the ultimate success would be the decade Neale Daniher spent at Melbourne and the contrasts could not be more different.
Daniher had to work on a shoestring budget, constantly pushing the proverbial uphill, while Buckley has been afforded every opportunity and has been given every chance to succeed.
Buckley is the last person I want in charge of this rebuild and new footy boss Graham Wright needs to take a broom to both the coaching and list management departments to firstly win back the support of the members and see any discernible change at the club.
While it might shock the footy media, if another coach was given a grand final side and a decade in which to coach, they might be able to do a little better, perhaps even win a premiership.
Frank Tzimas
Roar Rookie
spot on Nick, great article
AdamDilligafThompson
Roar Rookie
That's it hey we all make mistakes and he's not responsible for all of them thats for sure. Yeah he has i just have a memory like an elephant and something he said when we first got into the AFL rattled my cage but deep down he'll always be a Port boy as well. Anybody that can deal with Eddie has to be doing something right, about the closest thing you could compare would be Clarko and kennet im thinking just off the top of my head. Although koshi gives it a good go as well sometimes.lol. who knows hey it could be like hardwick maybe its the people around him that can make the difference. Omg dam i didnt think of that, can you put anything past carlton though at the moment, they'd try anyone.lol. from malthouse to bucks and from rats to malthouse, I think if both clubs had a choice again they'd probs do things differently.
Kevo
Roar Rookie
Bucks really made his mark and created his future by having that amazing year at Port as a 20 year old. I've heard him speak fondly of Port. I think he'll remain in footy. I feel he's still a chance to retain the coach's role at Collingwood. Despite the poor error in judgement/timing re the coach change over, that was a 3 way balls up. He's made other mistakes too but he's got plenty of qualities. The game plan has looked woeful in the past season and a bit. In truth he's probably had to carry the can for a lot of the club f ups. I don't know how much direct involvement he had in the Treloar decision making but he came out if it looking pretty ugly. I'd prefer to see Collingwood have a far and wide and deep cultural shift rather than just changing the coach. We may end up doing both. One thing is for sure he won't follow Mick, Pagan, Ratton and others to the watery grave of Carlton.
Bangkokpussey
Roar Rookie
An Apple rots from the inside out. Buckley is not the problem, although his poor handling of Treloar was telling. Paying overs and long contracts is short term thinking and Collingwoods board and management are the architects. They need a drastic revamp Starting at the top. Look at the team Buckley is working with. Elliot is good but always injured Sidebottom out of form Pendles looks disheartened. The best player kicked out. They need to bite the bullet and play the young guys to see who they will keep beyond 2021. I cant think of too many older keepers outside of Pendles and Grundy. That means a full rebuild and cleanout and a trip down the ladder starting with a big recruitment drive in management and the whole football dept. That is going to require a few years in the wilderness and I dont know if the board or the bulk of supporters have the stomach for that.
Commish
Roar Rookie
I should qualify the second sentence about overpaying players - Grundy has obviously been mentioned and he's another prime example. I meant it more in a systemic sense.
Commish
Roar Rookie
Good article, enjoyed it. I'd like to add whoever signed off on the pay checks to the list of those culpable. I don't ever hear anyone mentioning over-paying players but that's where Collingwood's list problems start. Travis Cloke went on the Footy Show several years ago and made his money-grab very public, after essentially one very good season. Publicly held the club to ransom and they caved in and paid him! He should have been shown the door immediately. Instead of moaning about COLA even now, McGuire should accept the consequences of his club overpaying players like Cloke under his tenure and the money-first culture it can foster (and the carrot it dangles in front of greedy agents who then want bigger deals for players under their management). Culture comes from the top. Room for a fresh start now he's not there.
John
One thing I’ve always found with the Pies over the years, is just as you are about to write them off they find a way to bounce back. 2021 is NOT producing that bounce back and Bucks seems bereft of ideas. A VERY worrying sign. The failure to build youthful additions to the side when things were going well have hurt us badly. Now we are left with an ageing squad and some baby pies a long way from being ready for the vigours of AFL. A conservative approach by the Pies has basically stilted team development. Overpaying exisring team members has also NOT helped.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
If it was it'd be toast by now.
Peter Warrington
Guest
Unfortunately they had a decent gear in 13 :(
Flagpies
Roar Rookie
I'd like a reason why you wouldn't want Leppa, considering the well is dry when considering available coaches. Unless you look at assistants, like Leppa, there is not much to choose from. Also remembering we won't be the choosers of a new coach, we'll be the beggars.
AdamDilligafThompson
Roar Rookie
how they stuffed up the cap so bad is the million dollar question I guess but you cant help but think with treloar and Stephenson still in the team they'd be doing better than 1-6. Repeat think.lol. i don't know if you can ever come back from that trade effort although if they were sitting with a positive or a even win loss record people wouldn't be having this conversation, if we believe what the club says technically you have to wait a couple of years to see what those drafts picks brought in to see if it was a winning situation but for now its defs a loss. Being a x port player I've always got that soft spot for figjam even if some of his comments about port over the years has bemused me, it would be a shame to see him lost to football but I dont think he'd be completely gone maybe a year off and then back as an assistant somewhere you'd think.
Benowa Boy
Roar Rookie
Can a guru statistician tell us how often the opposition scored against the Pies in the last two minutes of Q1, Q2 and Q3? This has been a constant in the Buckley era. Not sure who makes the recruiting decisions, but the Pies recruit almost uniquely skinny, white guys. The great premiership teams of Richmond and Hawthorn have at least four indigenous players. They are the match winners, the creative, the exceptional and the talented. The Pies recruited Varcoe and Wells, both very good players, but well past their best. And why did the Pies recruit Jeremy Howe? His marking ability and decent kicking are perfect for centre half forward, yet he's played almost exclusively as a defensive stopper. A travesty and epitomises the lack of imagination and nous of the coach.
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
He just needs a few more years to turn it around
Rowdy
Roar Rookie
It was bound to happen, a roo at the kangas.
berrlins
Roar Pro
A fat annoying cat, I'm not actually sure of the species, but he is full of love.
John
Very interesting perspective okapiman!
John
Scot Burns....as honest as the day is long!
John
Agree totally re the asistants. If Bucks doesn't go and I think the scales suggest he should, then it's time to bring in some assistant coaches who aren't yes men and who are prepared to challenge Buckley's failing game plan.
John
Yes Peter, many of us thought Moore might be the answer up forward but he is clearly better value in the backline and for Christ’s sake Buckley surely couldn’t be so perverse that he is more interested in teaching the critics a lesson than focusing on the team.Woe is Collingwood!
John
Does anyone rate Blake Caracella?Success seems to follow him.