Tasmanian AFL task force member Nick Riewoldt backs Nathan Buckley for inaugural coaching gig

A decision is yet to be made on who will lead the Devils in their debut AFL season, but a member of the Tasmanian AFL task force has backed the pursuit of Pies legend Nathan Buckley.

3/4/24. Gather Round – former Collingwood coach & player Nathan Buckley for the longest kick over Torrens Fox promotion. Picture: Keryn Stevens

St Kilda champion and Tasmanian AFL taskforce member Nick Riewoldt has backed Nathan Buckley’s claims to become the Devils’ first senior coach.

Buckley looms large for the AFL’s 19th team once new chief executive Brendon Gale steps away from Richmond and begins the search for a new coach from the end of the year.

Buckley, who led the Magpies to the 2018 Grand Final amid a 10-year stint as Collingwood coach, is considered one of the strong candidates for the Devils’ job.

Riewoldt helped work on the business case for the new club and recently returned to Australia from overseas where he is living for an update on the club’s behind-the-scenes progress.

Riewoldt has backed his former Fox Footy colleague as a candidate. Picture: Alex Coppel.

The former superstar Saint said Buckley had all the tools to coach Tasmania ahead of its AFL entry in 2028 and would be an outstanding choice.

“I love it,” Riewoldt said on the Footy Talk podcast. “(Buckley) would be a fantastic acquisition. He is a great person … and the evolution of him from player to coach to media commentator and person, more broadly, has been amazing.

“He’s a Dom Sheed amazing kick at goal (in the 2018 Grand Final) away from being a premiership coach. So he can coach.”

Collingwood football manager Graham Wright, who is overseas and on a break from the club, has also been in talks with the AFL about his future and could be sought as the Devils’ new football boss. The club is also in talks about an elite training facility at Rosny Park as the Tasmanian government and the AFL push for a world-class venue at Hobart’s Macquarie Point.

Graham Wright is another name linked to the Tassie franchise.

But the hunt will soon be on for the right people to fill key positions as the league finalises the list concessions that will help hand the Devils a talented team from its first AFL season.

The club wants to target finals in its first two seasons and a top-four finish within its first four years.

Riewoldt said some of the negative speculation about Buckley came from a small minority of former players.

“The reason he gets a bit of a bad rap as coach is because of a certain segment of Collingwood players that like to hang it on him from time to time, the ‘Rat Pack’,” Riewoldt said. “(But he) would be a great acquisition: (a) football person, a big personality and he’s very well-balanced as a person.”