James Hird says Collingwood will be a top four team by June next year
WITH his team at 2-4 and finals slipping away, Nathan Buckley is under extreme pressure. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at him, writes James Hird.
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NATHAN Buckley must be the coolest cat in footy.
Last Sunday, while out for a run on a glorious Melbourne autumn morning, I came across a junior football game. A group of wide-eyed youngsters in the distinctive blue Prahran jumper were looking starstruck at their coach.
Sunday was meant to be a Charge of the Light Brigade for Bucks. Media pundits said he had no chance against the might of Geelong, with Joel Selwood and Patrick Dangerfield poised to pick over the carcass of Collingwood.
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But there was Buckley on that Sunday morning. Calm, relaxed and enjoying the game in its purest form as he coached a group of eight-year-olds to victory. I doubt he was as composed five hours later, but he did manage to silence a lot of his critics with a well coached and executed performance against the Cats.
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Being an AFL senior coach is like no other job I have experienced. I have never operated on someone, guided a mission to the moon or sent young men to their death in war. All these roles carry far greater significance in life than that of an AFL coach, but the pressure and stress that comes with being an AFL coach is unique and mostly unhealthy.
I suspect that most of the pressure derives from the personality type. High-achieving, intense characters with a fair slice of ego, who are used to getting their own way, are the norm in AFL coaching circles. But it is more than this that sends most coaches into a ball of tension come game day.
A coach’s job is never done. AFL is not a game of perfection. Every day is different and the game never leaves you. It can be present when driving in the car, sitting at the table for dinner or lying in bed. The brain always takes you back to the job.
Before coaching, my last thoughts before I fell asleep were normally about my family, my beautiful wife lying next to me and my kids. My first thoughts in the morning were similar, but that quickly changed after a month as coach.
I soon fell asleep counting hamstring strains or contested ball numbers and, upon waking, I was not thinking about what the kids wanted on their toast but instead, who was going to tag Gary Ablett or Chris Judd and why we couldn’t keep the ball inside our forward 50.
Coaching became an all-consuming role. A work-life-balance and time out are foreign to most coaches and I am pleased to see the AFL and the AFL Coaches Association tackling some of the issues.
The best time as a coach is the hour after a win.
Once the press conference is complete you can sit with your staff for a few minutes, have a laugh and relax before the preparations for next week start.
Most senior and assistant coaches are back into work within hours of the final siren. On a regular night, 3-4 hours after a game, senior and assistant coaches will be hunched over computer screens, dissecting the game from three different camera angles and searching for the reasons they won or lost.
It is called coding; picking out individual video edits that help to explain the game each week. Many a night I received or sent a text to my assistant coaches that had some sort of expletive in it about coding. Sometimes this is where the game is won or lost, but normally a football game is won by the players. The coach’s relationship with them is crucial.
Building and maintaining those relationships is the most rewarding yet difficult part of the job. A coach’s phone is always on and your brain is always thinking about how to get the best out of every player.
Management in every job is a lot about delegation, but you cannot delegate relationships. Every player on an AFL list wants a relationship with the senior coach and if a coach wants the best out of their players, it must be nurtured.
Bucks must be doing this well as his players are playing for him, he is building a good team, has a potentially great midfield and will get more from his forward line as the season progresses.
At two wins and four losses, finals will be difficult, but by June next year with Nathan Buckley in charge I believe Collingwood will be a top four team and have an exciting year in 2018.
Originally published as James Hird says Collingwood will be a top four team by June next year
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