Nathan Buckley and Collingwood will always be linked
Nathan Buckley evolved as a player, coach and person in almost three decades at Collingwood. And one special image will always be part of his legacy.
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Nathan Buckley strode into the Collingwood Football Club in late 1993 as an immensely talented, self-confessed “brash young bloke” whose impatience for success had the capacity to rub some people the wrong way.
The 21-year-old had just been named the AFL’s Rising Star, having left the lowly Brisbane Bears in the pursuit of a premiership at footy’s most famous club.
Fast forward almost three decades, the calm, composed 48-year-old will walk away from Collingwood after his final game as coach on the Queen’s Birthday, having spent more than half his life with the Magpies.
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The match will mark Buckley’s 478th official match for Collingwood (260 as a player and 218 as coach) after the club announced the end of his tenure on Wednesday.
He would have been happy to coach on, but for the first time in a generation the Magpies have seen a very different future without one of the towering figures in the club’s history.
The break-up between Collingwood and one of its favourite sons was never going to be easy.
But leaving aside his own disappointment, Buckley’s exit was full of class, fulfilling a promise he made years ago that he would always do what was right for the club.
“I’ve been so grateful for the role the club has played in my life and for helping shape the person I’ve become,” Buckley said.
“The journey I’ve shared with Collingwood has been more deep than just being a good footballer.”
The Magpie Army witnessed first-hand Buckley’s evolution as a person, as much as his transformation into arguably the club’s best player of the modern era, as well as his rollercoaster ride of exhilarating highs and gut-wrenching lows during 10 seasons as coach.
That Buckley didn’t win an AFL premiership — as a player or senior coach with the club — will remain a tragedy that is inescapably Collingwood in form.
So, where will his playing/coaching career stack up in the pantheon of Magpies’ greats?
Collingwood coaching colossus Jock McHale once nominated Bob Rose as the greatest player he had seen wear black and white.
Near the end of his own life, Rose would insist Buckley was the best Magpie he had seen.
In black-and-white terms, there could be no higher compliment.
Rose was considered the club’s best post-war player; Buckley was rated as the most influential of the modern era.
Both are also inescapably linked to heartache they endured as Collingwood coaches.
Rose lost three Grand Finals by one point, four points and 10 points (the latter after leading at halftime by 44 points).
Buckley’s sole Grand Final as coach produced another heartbreaking moment, with West Coast’s Dom Sheed kicking the winning goal with less than two minutes left on the clock.
Rose did win one VFL premiership as a player in 1953; while Buckley’s quest for a flag as a player resulted in two Grand Final losses, and an indelible image of him taking off his Norm Smith Medal after his best-afield performance against the Lions in 2002.
Those two Grand Final losses cruelly came against a Brisbane side he had once been a part of, but Buckley maintained he had no regrets other than a kick or two that may have changed the narrative.
His sole flag as a player came with Port Adelaide’s SANFL premiership side in 1992.
Few footballers would have expended as much blood, sweat and tears in chasing a flag as Buckley.
As he once said: “I’ve always played football red-lining. Everything I’ve done in football, I’ve done because I’ve worked hard … whatever I’ve achieved, whatever I’ve failed at, it hasn’t been for a lack of effort.”
His 14 seasons as a player at Collingwood produced arguably more individual honours than anyone else in the club’s history.
There’s his record of six Copeland Trophies, a Brownlow Medal (2003) as well as two other placings; a Norm Smith Medal (2002), and seven All-Australians.
He was an idol for a generation of young Magpie fans and a beacon of hope through the gloom of the late 1990s.
He was named in Collingwood’s team of the century after only four seasons, was elevated to the captaincy, and helped transform the club in the early 2000s under coach Mick Malthouse.
It was inevitable he would one day coach the club.
That led to footy’s most controversial succession plans, one that ended in acrimony when Malthouse walked away from the club after making back-to-back Grand Finals — with a flag in 2010 and runners-up in 2011.
Buckley’s transition was never going to be an easy one, though the Magpies did make the preliminary final in his first season (2012) before bowing out in an elimination final in 2013.
By that time he had made the decision that a rejuvenation of the list was required, which brought tough decisions on players and led to four successive years outside the finals as the merits of the handover was endlessly questioned.
Buckley was given more time after a thorough review of the club in late 2017.
The rejuvenated coach and the reconnected team not only made the 2018 finals, they knocked off Richmond in a preliminary final.
The endearing image of Buckley hugging one of his sons in the rooms after that win was one of the most endearing of his time.
Collingwood kicked the first five goals of the 2018 Grand Final against West Coast and looked to have the game in its keeping.
But the Eagles fought back and in a Sliding Doors moments that will echo through the footy ages, Sheed took a mark in the dying moments and put West Coast in front, producing another heart-wrenching moment.
It was the cruellest of footy blows.
A preliminary final loss followed the next year, then a semi-final flogging at the hands of Geelong last year.
An embarrassing salary cap squeeze preceded a trade fire sale of three key players including Adam Treloar for limited returns; the leaking of the “Do Better” report heaped pressure on the club; and Eddie McGuire’s departure as president with a likely board election on the horizon compounded the pressure on a coach out of contract.
The Magpies struggled on the field, too, with only three wins in the first half of 2021.
A shock win over Adelaide last week gave Magpies fans some respite.
After that game, Buckley waited by the changeroom door, handing out high fives and bear hugs to his players.
It was almost a goodbye in itself.
Buckley will bow out of Collingwood — but not necessarily AFL football — as the fifth-longest serving coach in Collingwood’s history, behind McHale, Malthouse, Phonse Kyne and Leigh Matthews.
All of those men, except Buckley, led the Magpies to premierships.
But Buckley’s love of the black and white won’t end with his tenure.
“Collingwood has been a massive part of my life,” he said. “I will have a strong passion for this place until the day I am no longer on this earth.”
HOW WINDS OF CHANGE TOPPLED TWO PIES TITANS
— Mark Robinson
Nathan Buckley exuded a calmness throughout this withering half-season crisis.
As losses mounted and people fell around him, it was as if he had reconciled with himself that his contribution to Collingwood was coming to an end.
On Wednesday, it became official.
The “appetite for change’’ came from Collingwood and, in the end, from Buckley himself.
The reality is the Pies pulled the trigger on one of their favourite sons.
The winds of change are devouring the Pies and in the space of six months, two of the most profound figures in Collingwood’s 138-year history have departed.
First Eddie McGuire. Now Nathan Buckley.
But before the plaudits, two questions are at the forefront of discussions.
Firstly, will Buckley coach again? He didn’t say “no” and it would be foolish if a club looking for a coach did not make a call.
Secondly, who will coach Collingwood?
Lists will be drawn and arguments made, but to me, there’s an obvious favoured candidate.
It is Ross Lyon. And he will be approached, if he hasn’t been already — unofficially, of course.
Buckley’s calmness was wrapped with grace and humility, which has underpinned his 25 years at the Magpies.
It can’t be said definitively that he was the best player to ever play for the famous club, or if, in fact, he is its greatest name.
But Bucks’ name sits comfortably alongside Jock McHale, Bob Rose and Gordon Coventry.
While it was increasingly inevitable this would be Buckley’s 10th and final season in charge, Wednesday’s news that Buckley would coach his final game next Monday was startling.
Of course there’s sadness, even anger, but almost as quickly there’s a fondness for and an appreciation of how much he committed himself to his footy club.
It’s always the same when the great sons depart after playing and then coaching.
Think Michael Voss and James Hird and before them Kevin Bartlett and Alex Jesaulenko.
The clubs always march on. And so will Collingwood.
While Buckley had many rusted on Pies fans in his corner, there were a large number who were clamouring for change — and seemingly the board led by Mark Korda
He’s always been a polarising figure, Bucks, going all the way back to when it was assumed he would join North Melbourne from Brisbane, but instead landed at Collingwood at the end of 1992.
He was a powerhouse player, seemingly as dedicated to achieving perfection in mind and body as Rocky’s nemesis Ivan Drago.
He was loved by Pies fans and despised by opposition fans. Jealousy from others always came to mind with Bucks.
Buckley always did it his way, often in the face of brutal headwinds.
He took over as coach from Mick Malthouse in 2012 and even his quest in that new arena drew criticism.
His own drive for perfection was seen as a negative in the post-Malthouse era, and quickly Bucks peeled the playing list.
As the Pies fell down the ladder, the critics lined up and by 2017 were openly calling for his head.
His best years of coaching came near the end.
He changed his coaching methods after the review in 2017 and the Pies were a kick off winning the 2018 flag.
With luck, Buckley’s side would have won perhaps Collingwood’s greatest ever premiership and he would have become be a club coaching legend.
He is anyway if you judge a football person’s worth by his contribution.
He said he leaves fulfilled by the journey, but with a sense of unfulfillment having not won a flag as a player or coach. That will always be a chasm.
How did it get to this?
To try to contemplate from when the Pies knocked over West Coast in the first final last year, to both McGuire and Buckley gone 13 games later, is mind-boggling.
The dramas with the salary cap, the fire sale, the McGuire and board failings and the arrival of the start of the civil war all played a part in Buckley’s demise.
The fish always rots at the head and, in football terms, begins to smell when too many bad decisions are made with player contracts.
Buckley, too, would wonder if he recently coached his best.
In 2018 and 2019, when it was said Buckley took a step to the side and did not coach everything and everyone, and he had a game plan based on quick ball movement, the Pies were top of the pops.
Parts of last year and certainly this season, there has been a return of a methodical and defence-based style and, to be frank, it has left fans, and many in the media, disillusioned.
That he could garner his young team and get to play the way he wanted it to play is testament to his ability to coach.
No, he’s not gone because of the game style.
Buckley’s gone because he couldn’t lower the shoulder and beat back the winds of change.
And when he realised that, the decision to depart became all that easier.
He wasn’t bitter. Instead, he was what we’ve all admired about him: classy, dignified and honest.
Of course, he told white lies in recent weeks about when he would sit down with the club and talk about his future, that it would happen in the coming weeks, and even on Monday night on AFL 360 that he still had the resolve to continue coaching.
Then, a day-and-a-half later, the bombshell was dropped.
He gave a hint, though, as he has several times during this tumultuous season.
“Everyone has their time,’’ he said.
Wednesday’s announcement even shocked the AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan, who was in a mid-year All-Australian selection meeting when he was told the news.
McLachlan had not seen it coming.
Debate about whether Buckley should coach this final game will unfold. A final game hasn’t always worked in the past for coaches, but this seems different.
Like, he thoroughly deserves it.
Originally published as Nathan Buckley and Collingwood will always be linked
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