Mick Malthouse on Nathan Buckley’s plight at Collingwood and his sacking at Carlton

AS the blowtorch continues to be applied to Nathan Buckley, the Collingwood coach’s former mentor MICK MALTHOUSE recalls the trauma of coaching when your job is on the line.

Nathan Buckley leaves the quarter-time huddle against Essendon at the MCG with a worried look on his face. The 37-point Round 16 loss killed off Collingwood’s finals hopes. Picture: Getty Images

COACHING is an addiction.

It rarely has more highs than lows, but there is mountain you climb that you want to keep climbing every day.

APPALLED: EDDIE SAVAGES BUCKS ‘HYSTERIA’

A winning feeling is fleeting because you have to move on quickly. It’s the same after a loss. Even after the heaviest of defeats, come Monday you look to the next game with supreme optimism.

But there is one certainty in coaching, and that is there is an end game.

Scrutiny is inevitable. But once the speculation starts, in the media and among the supporters, it almost always finishes badly.

Coaches rarely retire of their own volition. There is always a nudge, sometimes subtle but most of the time with a heavy hand.

The assessments made are generally on win/loss records. Even if you’ve been relatively successful getting the team near or in finals each season, in some eyes it’s not good enough.

As the coach at the centre of the speculation and scrutiny it can be overwhelming. It has such an enormous and negative effect on your psyche, on your team, and on your family.

In my third and last year at Carlton speculation about my future started even before Round 1.

One senior player told me he’d done everything possible to find a different way into the clubrooms so he didn’t have to be confronted by the media each day about my job.

Mick Malthouse’s final days at Carlton were among his toughest. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

He hated it. I hated it.

It was one of the hardest times of my career, to see my team and my family so profoundly effected by it, yet still trying to stay positive and focus in on the next game, trying so hard to win it.

It was harder still to retain confidence in my own ability.

The doom and gloom that hangs over a club at these times is so hard to lift.

It tires out everyone at the club. They get sick of the repetition and of the speculation.

The uncertainty plays on their minds and they become incapable of rallying against it.

Collingwood is now playing different football to how it played two months ago.

Nathan Buckley would be experiencing doubt and frustration. I know only too well what his family is going through.

I imagine he is now hoping for a decision soon, one way or the other.

The Magpie hierarchy have at least supported their coach this year and throughout his career.

Rodney Eade has been here before, he knows it well. Not that it makes it any easier.

After this weekend’s Gold Coast-Collingwood at least one coach can breathe in some short-lived relief.

Nathan Buckley’s future has been a subject of speculation all year. Picture: Getty Images

I am a strong advocate for supporting coaches to do their job. So I am a strong believer that coaches should never be sacked during a season.

It is just more disruption for the team to have an interim coach — who rarely goes on to get the main job — so why do it?

This year thankfully, as much as there have been coaches under pressure for a lot of it, there is no indication that their season will end prematurely.

But the inevitability of the changing of the guard means we rarely start a new season with the same 18 coaches as the last one.

MYSTERY OF COACHING

The prerequisite for a senior coach is like shifting sands. It can depend on what is in vogue.

There is no real consistency in who can coach and who can’t because sometimes it’s not what’s on paper, but a gut feel.

Coaching is about instinct. It’s understanding what you want and putting that vision in front of the people at your club.

It’s knowing that no two people are the same, and still getting everyone on board sharing your vision and working together to achieve the same goal.

I for one believe that in today’s game the greatest marker for appointing a new coach is that he has already coached his own team.

Ken Hinkley is the perfect example of this.

He coached successfully at three country football clubs and also worked as an assistant at St Kilda, Geelong and the Gold Coast Suns.

Mick Malthouse says there’s no formula to coaching success, which Luke Beveridge has enjoyed. Picture: Getty Images

Premiership coach Luke Beveridge broke coaching records at amateur level before working as a player development manager at Collingwood and then cutting his teeth as an assistant at Hawthorn.

Eagles premiership player Don Pyke coached in the WAFL before stints as an assistant at Adelaide and West Coast, and continued a career outside of football.

He is now making a fantastic fist of it as coach of ladder leaders Adelaide.

If coaching your own team can’t be achieved then a deep understanding of club life is essential.

Two-time premiership captain John Worsfold was in the coaches box at Carlton before taking the senior role at the Eagles.

After winning a premiership he stepped away from the game before stepping back in at Essendon where, I believe, he is up there as coach of the year this season.

We currently have two coaches in the league without AFL/VFL playing experience.

Chris Fagan at Brisbane and Brendon Bolton at Carlton.

Other coaches have been appointed from inside the club, and others from outside.

There really is no simple formula for success.

READY TO LEAD

I hope any club looking for a new coach will look at the new list of level 4 accredited coaches. The calibre of young men here is outstanding.

Names such as Stuart Dew, Peter Sumich, John Barker, Adam Kingsley, Matthew Nicks, Scott Burns, Blake Caracella, Robert Harvey, Simon Lloyd, Dean Solomon, Steven King, Brett Kirk, Leigh Tudor and Brendon Lade.

Then again it’s unfathomable to me to think that former senior coaches such as Guy McKenna, Mark Neeld, Brenton Sanderson, Justin Leppitsch, Mark Williams, Mark Harvey, Matthew Knights, Brett Ratten and Brendan McCartney wouldn’t also be considered. I hope they are.

Mick Malthouse says clubs in the market for a new coach should look at level 4 accredited coaches such as former Collingwood captain and now assistant coach Scott Burns. Picture: AAP

Good to great coaches are hard to come by and sometimes it can become a revolving door of coaches in and coaches out, looking for that next leader to take your club to a premiership.

I was so lucky to coach at four wonderful clubs across four decades, and for the joy the grand finals and the premierships brought to everyone at the club, the families, and all the supporters, I would do it again in a heartbeat.