Andrew Bolt: Buckley the ultimate coach in bowing out graciously

In stepping down, Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley has set the example we needed after a shrieking procession of failed leaders dragged from their jobs, swearing revenge.

Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley. Picture: Getty Images

I am not a Collingwood fan. I have never had more than a grudging respect for its coach, Nathan Buckley.

That’s just changed. Never had I heard such a gracious and grateful speech from a man who’s just been forced by failure to leave a job he loved.

Respect is now admiration.

This was the example we needed after seeing a shrieking procession of failed leaders being dragged out of their jobs, swearing revenge. Taking no blame. Hurling insults. Denouncing those who dared to do them down.

Think of former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd, first plotting against his successor, and now shrieking he was robbed by wicked Rupert Murdoch.

Think of former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, raging at the “madness” of the Liberal MPs in the “insurgency” against him, before also blaming Murdoch and campaigning to defeat the party he once led.

Buckley stated things with the clarity of an honest man. Picture: Getty Images

Think of former US president Donald Trump, insisting he was robbed by voter fraud and begging Republicans to stop Joe Biden from being declared the election winner.

Actually, no. Don’t think of them. Think instead of Buckley, who after a miserable start to the season as coach of Australia’s biggest AFL club – its biggest sports club – accepted on Wednesday that his time was up.

OK, maybe he was tapped on the shoulder. Or maybe he simply read the game as well as club heavyweights who wanted him gone.

Either way, Buckley at his press conference stated things with the clarity of an honest man – above all, a man honest about himself, which is the rarest honesty of all.

There was a need for “somebody new”, he said. The club had an “appetite for change”, but Buckley accepted he could not be that change: “My manner, the way that I lead, is established.”

Football experts will know better than me how much of Collingwood’s failure this year – and its lack of a premiership in Buckley’s more than nine years as a coach – can be blamed on him. Or whether he, too, could have suddenly clicked into success, as Richmond coach Damien Hardwick miraculously managed after he was at the point of being dumped.

Ex-Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull raged at the ‘madness’ of the Liberal MPs in the ‘insurgency’ against him.

Buckley may privately be wondering that, too, but strong men, impressive men, keep these things to themselves and accept their fate when the game is up. They do not rage against the wind.

That is an ancient wisdom. As the Old Testament puts it: “To every thing there is a season ... A time to be born, and a time to die.”

And Buckley, an introspective man who has practised yoga and meditation, was right on that page, whether he knew it or not.

Yes, after 28 years at Collingwood as a player and coach, “it is a bit sad to think that’s coming to an end on Monday”.

But, Buckley added: “I’ve had a fair crack at it and everyone has their time, every relationship, every person has their time, and mine has come. And I’m really content with the decision that’s been reached.”

“Let us be thankful,” the old book adds.

And Buckley spent most of his words at the press conference on making clear just how grateful he was. He’d earlier in the day said the same to the club even as it was showing him the door.

“The overwhelming message I had was one of gratitude,” he said. (Have Rudd or Turnbull ever shown gratitude to the parties that made them prime minister? Would these men, both professing Christians, seem less demented, less tortured, if they, too, resolved “let us be thankful”?)

Former US President Donald Trump insisted he was robbed by voter fraud. Picture: AFP

Buckley went on: “I feel I’ve been blessed to be part of this football club over a long time ... the lessons have been far more deep and broad than just being a good footballer.

“I really do feel that I’ve got the better end of the bargain. I’m so grateful for the role the club has played in my life and all the people within it ... it has shaped the person I am.”

That is a man who sees beyond the moment. Sees the context of his life.

Maybe these words impressed me so much because I’m too slow to be grateful for my own blessings, no matter how often my wife counts them for me. To hear this important message from a man at the very moment you’d expect him to be at his most bitter and anguished is even more striking.

Let me tell you hard that is. Eddie McGuire, a man I like and thought was unfairly smeared as a racist, was forced out as Collingwood president four months ago.

Wounded and humiliated, his own farewell speech then included what Buckley’s did not: a justification and explanation of what he’d done for the club. Buckley, however, spoke only of what the club had done for him.

Is that not the example we’ve been searching for, in these so-selfish days?

I don’t know how good a football coach Buckley really was. But in the manner of his leaving, he has coached us all. And coached well.