A Collingwood win would be the club’s greatest premiership and story, writes Mark Robinson
A COLLINGWOOD win will be the final chapter of nine dramatic years at the club from the moment it was announced Nathan Buckley would replace Mick Malthouse as coach, writes MARK ROBINSON.
Mark Robinson
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IT TOOK until the 53rd minute of a 55-minute conversation on Wednesday before Eddie McGuire surrendered to himself.
Sitting in his Toorak office, McGuire was at his crisp and commanding best and was absolutely unbending in his belief that Saturday’s Grand Final, and potential record-equalling 16th premiership, was a whole of club achievement.
Delving back to July, 2009, when it was announced Nathan Buckley would replace Mick Malthouse as coach, a decision that would somewhat bewitch the club for almost a decade, McGuire told story after story about everything and everyone.
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For 53 minutes, he barely drew breath.
In the end, though, McGuire relented.
Today was about the spirit of Collingwood and the journey of Nathan Buckley.
“This is what Collingwood is about, when the backs are against the wall we fight back,” McGuire said.
“In the past few years we’ve shown a resilience, a loyalty not seen in public life, we’ve shown integrity when modern institutions don’t show that, we’ve shown a commitment to our most disadvantaged in our community and we are now playing a standard of football which fills the terraces again and we’re in the Grand Final.
“I reckon we’re playing for everybody, as we have done since the first game back in 1892, for everybody who feels disassociated, who feels left behind.
“And if you’re a person who feels you’re fighting against it all the time, then you should have a photo of Nathan Buckley above the mantelpiece and say that’s who you want to be.
“Because this bloke has had, and whatever he’s done all through his football career, somebody’s always had the smart alec line. You know, he’s either ‘FIGJAM’ or they have a crack about his Norm Smith Medal, ask was he as good as (Michael) Voss or (James) Hird.
“He carried this club, him and Mick together for so long, and then he comes into a coaching situation which was made far more difficult than it needed to be. And now he’s getting some clear air and as soon as he does, he becomes coach of the year.
“People are seeing him for the wonderful person that he is and if he does win the premiership, there will be nobody more happy for him and our club than me because I believe in him so much.”
McGuire drew breath again.
SATURDAY has been nine years in the planning and seven years in practice.
The decision to implement their “Kirribilli Agreement”, where Malthouse would coach for two years, hand the role to Buckley, and remain as a chairman of selectors type for three years, was never fulfilled.
Buckley coached of course, but Malthouse did a runner.
The story of why has been told and re-told and rewritten, but the full breadth of what happened will never be revealed because of personal circumstances.
The upshot is Saturday could be Collingwood’s greatest premiership and Buckley its greatest story.
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And there have been big stories at Collingwood.
The day of the departure of legendary coach of Jock McHale after 38 years would’ve been colossal.
There was beating Melbourne in ‘58. The ‘77 Grand Final and replay under Tommy Hafey. The drought-breaker of ‘90 and the drought-breaker of 2010.
And, of course, the appointment of McGuire as president.
“I’d chuck in the appointment of Mick Malthouse,” McGuire said.
“Mick’s an ornery character at times, but I love him because I love his combativeness, but there’s no misconstruing of how important Mick’s appointment was to the rebuilding of the Collingwood Football Club.”
The “Kirribilli Agreement” was agreed to in the same Toorak office and McGuire remembers it well.
“I do because at times I wonder if I was there given the reporting of what was allegedly said and the rest of it,’’ he said.
“That’s the thing I can never quite get my head around — this was all done in the spirit of co-operation for the benefit of everyone involved in that room.”
It was first agreed with Malthouse’s manager Peter Sidwell the contract would be two years and two years before McGuire added a fifth year at the death. And that Malthouse would be paid about $500,000 a season. When Malthouse agreed, McGuire felt like he had solved the Cuban missile crisis.
Despite Collingwood’s on-field success and supposed harmony — it went preliminary final, premiership and Grand Final through 2009-11 — it all blew up in 2011 and died the night Malthouse made his infamous appearance on The Footy Show.
MALTHOUSE will attend the Grand Final, but if you’re expecting he and Buckley will bury the hatchet with a Magpie victory, well, it won’t happen.
If you believe Malthouse, he said he never thinks about what played out in 2009 and 2011.
Others who know Malthouse say he would think about it every night.
“Time’s a healer, it always has been,” Malthouse told the Herald Sun this week.
“But I’ve got nothing to have healed in all honesty. You just move on. People make more of it.”
He said he and Buckley weren’t friends, which begs the question: How did they coach and captain Collingwood together?
“You put two professional people together and you expect them to work together,’’ he said.
“I helped him (Buckley) be a better captain because the players, when I first arrived there, couldn’t stand him. So he needed to be told how to be a better captain and I think he become a much better captain.”
Malthouse, who is the AFL coaching record holder, says he is a footy person with allegiances to St Kilda and Richmond as a player, and Footscray, West Coast and Collingwood as a coach.
Asked whether he would be quietly chuffed for his former skipper if he wins, Malthouse said: “I hope the best side on the day wins it and whoever wins it, they will be a first premiership coach.
“If you said to me some bloke has won 10 premierships, I’d go for the underdog, and if Nathan Buckley is the underdog, then that’s who I hope wins.
“You’ve got two lads about the same age, coached for about the same length of time, coaching two of my former clubs. I’ve got no preference one way or another. That’s pretty fair. I’m not trying to be controversial, I just think it’s common sense.”
So, if Collingwood wins, will you shake Buckley’s hand?
“I wouldn’t be anywhere near Nathan. I’ll be in the grandstand, so it wouldn’t be an issue.”
Come on, Mick, don’t be a hard bastard.
“If I bumped into Adam Simpson or Nathan Buckley after the game and they just won a premiership, I’d shake their hand and say ‘congratulations’.”
THE seven years under Buckley have been tumultuous.
In his first year, 2012, he made the preliminary final, which made it four consecutive seasons the Pies had reached at least the preliminary final weekend. From then, the team tumbled down the ladder.
McGuire says there were off-field challenges and the “AFL blew up our whole business model with equalisation”.
In the early years, Buckley cut and moulded the list and put his stamp on the team, which created all sorts of issues.
The first-time coach was accused of being inflexible, demanding and lacking empathy and understanding of players who weren’t wired like him.
“There were are things he had to learn over the period and we thought it could be fast-tracked by having the alpha mentor in Mick Malthouse — that’s why we set it up,’’ McGuire said.
Season after season, as Buckley developed himself as man manager, the Pies were beaten on the field and smashed off it.
The headlines raged: Was McGuire’s grand plan playing itself out as a complete failure?
Injuries beset the team, the trading for players didn’t work out, the game plan was wishy washy and there were questions about whether Buckley had the players.
“Over a period we were all trying too hard and Bucks copped it,” McGuire said.
All the while, there was the development of the training facility, the introduction of a women’s team and netball team and the overall business wasn’t in great shape.
“I often say it’s a bit like my golf shot, it’s going up the middle and suddenly it’s in the rough and you’ve got to chip back in occasionally. That’s what we did. We were grinding our gears a bit in the past couple of years, not having people in right positions, and we needed change as well.”
THE 2017 season, the fourth consecutive year the Pies had missed the finals, was the flash point.
“I hated to be in the job the past couple of years — it was hard watching the footy,’’ McGuire said.
“Last year, that Round 23 game against Melbourne was everything for us. A black cloud lifted over the whole club.”
By then, an all-of-club review had already began. McGuire won’t readily admit, but he was concerned how the team was playing under Buckley.
Throughout last year, and often after completing his duties as host on Fox Footy’s Friday night coverage, McGuire rattled the brains of Paul Roos, Dermott Brereton, David King, Mark Maclure and Champion Data whiz Glenn Luff.
He got an eye for what the team wasn’t doing, but equally as important, what it was doing well.
The review that saved Buckley, was intense. Staff were let go or moved, a new chief executive was appointed, there were board changes, the footy department recruited new coaches, and Buckley, according to those who know him best, was a changed man. His grip on wanting to control everything was loosened.
Most important, the players wanted the coach and the players wanted ownership.
The Metallica song Nothing Else Matters played in Round 2 — which McGuire was unaware of — became the club’s mantra.
“This is what we’re all about, nothing else matter, we’re not going to get sucked in by all the noise around the Collingwood Football Club,” McGuire said. “The players have driven this, the staff have driven this within organisation. This year has been like a magical mystery tour. I’ve loved it. I’ve really struggled in the past couple of years but this year has been walking on sunshine.”
Today is about a coach and a club who got up off the canvas.
It might be nine years in the planning and seven years in the practice, but what awaits, if Collingwood wins, is a story for the ages.
Originally published as A Collingwood win would be the club’s greatest premiership and story, writes Mark Robinson
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