Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley admits he feels under pressure this season but won’t let it affect him

COLLINGWOOD coach Nathan Buckley has admitted he “absolutely” feels under pressure after another bottom-eight finish, but is adamant he cannot let it affect him.

COLLINGWOOD coach Nathan Buckley has admitted he “absolutely” feels under pressure after another bottom-eight finish, but is adamant he cannot let it affect him.

The Magpies are 8-11 this season and currently sit 12th on the ladder, but Buckley said any stress about the situation could have a significant flow-on effect.

“Absolutely I feel pressure,” he said on Fox Footy.

“But I can’t allow it to stress me because if it stresses me, it stresses the players (and) if it stresses the players, it stresses the club.

“And if you introduce that to your preparation let alone your performance, you’re not going to optimise it.”

Collingwood has beaten top-eight sides Greater Western Sydney and Geelong this season, which Buckley says goes to show that their best can be great.

It just doesn’t happen enough.

“Our best footy, even with that decimated list and players that we haven’t had available, we’ve still played a brand of footy that’s been able to beat some pretty good sides across the year,” he said.

“But we’re not consistent enough yet and you can’t be a good team until you’re consistent, so we’re still proving the ability to do that. And that, potentially, may be the toughest thing of all to being a good team, is to improve your bottom level.”

Consistency, he says, is the key to that.

“There are things that we are doing well behind the scenes,” he said.

“There are things that we’ve done well over the last couple of years that are coming through in our players and in our performances, but we’re still not as consistent as we’d like to be.

“It’s multi-faceted.”