Eddie McGuire lifts the lid on how Collingwood has transformed from a club in crisis to rediscovering winning ways

THE media spotlight lasered down on the Magpies with such force last year the players arrived each day not certain Nathan Buckley would still be their coach. What a different story 12 months on. Eddie McGuire lifts the lid on what’s changed at the club.

EDDIE McGuire is bringing his Lexus to a stop outside the Holden Centre.

It’s late Thursday morning and training is underway at the biggest footy club in the land.

But it’s quiet.

There’s cameras - there always is in these parts - but pointedly, they’re pointed at the ground.

The players are told that Brody Mihocek will make his AFL debut against Fremantle at the MCG. There’s hugs and cheers for the 25-year-old taken in last year’s rookie draft.

Another feel good story.

There’s no chasing media scrum, scrutiny or questions laced with venom.

That spotlight - this game’s hot and invasive light - has moved on. It was at Essendon, it’s flashed over Carlton and now it’s at St Kilda.

But it lasered down on the Magpies with such force last year the players arrived each day not certain Nathan Buckley would still be their coach.

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What a difference 12 month shas made for Nathan Buckley

Buckley had said “there’s no way” he could see himself in the job if the Pies didn’t play finals in 2017 - his fourth campaign without September action.

They didn’t, and after Collingwood had announced a strategic review of its entire organisation - inviting more scrutiny - a blood-thirsty industry demanded a high-profile scalp.

But Buckley was re-signed for two years and his side has won six of its past eight games playing a style that is attractive, sustainable and identifiable.

The club bent, but it didn’t break.

“If there’s anything to come out of it so far, it is that we don’t panic,” McGuire told the Herald Sun.

“If we’re under the most scrutiny that any club has probably been under in recent times - and I think we might have been - the key, and I don’t know if we’ve achieved this yet, is to try and make as many right decisions and not to be panicked into making decisions for decisions sake.

“I think there’s a real sense of trust around the club”

The review, conducted by Collingwood Foundation Chairman and Pan Group Australia founder Peter Murphy, and run by former managing partner of Egon Zehnder Chris Thomas and football manager Geoff Walsh, took several months.

Thomas and Walsh found the overwhelming feedback was that Buckley had to stay in charge.

But around him the pieces were put in place. Justin Longmuir and Garry Hocking joined as assistants and retired Bulldog Matthew Boyd, who Travis Cloke said was one of the best people in football, arrived as a development coach.

Nathan Buckley gets a hug from Adam Treloar at training . Pic: Michael Klein

Player manager Ned Guy joined as list manager to ease the load on head recruiter Derek Hine, while Kevin White was promoted to replace the outgoing Bill Davoren as strength and conditioning manager.

Premiership captain Nick Maxwell now works across the entire business as leadership and culture manager after stints at GWS and Melbourne Storm, where he still works in a limited capacity.

Dr Ruben Branson returned to the club in October, with one of his first acts of business the crucial decision to give star draftee Jaidyn Stephenson the medical tick of approval.

Board members Ian McMullin, who had been by McGuire’s side since he became president in 1998, and Alisa Camplin made way for former player Paul Licuria and Jodie Sizer. Assistant coach Scott Burns also departed.

An emotional Gary Pert resigned as CEO in July, later replaced by Mark Anderson, who came perfectly qualified having helped engineer cultural shifts and new governance processes at Swimming Australia following the London Olympics.

The fact Anderson had also worked in a sport that involved women was also considered important given Collingwood now has seven teams under the one roof, four of them female.

At the end of it all, there had been 39 staff changes, but most of those were internal positional changes and new appointments rather than bloodletting.

There is a genuine sense of unity at the club Pic: Michael Klein

But this is no comeback story yet. The Pies are what McGuire stressed “a work in progress”, given they lost their first two matches and last month reviewed its injury management practices for the second time in three weeks after Darcy Moore and Jamie Elliott were dealt hamstring setbacks.

Indeed, this is a club aware of footy’s fickle nature perhaps more than any other. A week is - you know the rest - a long time in football.

However, as things stand they are what Happy Gilmore’s mentor Chubbs Peterson once called ‘The happy place’.

They have kept winning with the sort of injuries that were seen to derail them last year, Moore’s contract situation hasn’t been a distraction and they handled Jordan de Goey’s off-field indiscretion with aplomb - the wayward forward working with Licuria’s education company during his drink driving ban.

And in scenes you couldn’t imagine last year, Buckley is making bets with his players about facial hair.

“There’s the old television saying at Channel 9 that winners have parties and losers have meetings,” McGuire said.

“But you can still be absolutely serious about what you do and have good times and fun with it. Those things are not mutually exclusive.”

Buckley, as polished a media performer as there is anyway, has seemingly grown even more comfortable on his weekly slot on SEN.

“I’m as connected to the football club in this current moment as I’ve ever been and even as a player,” Buckley admitted this week.

Collingwood Coach Nathan Buckley with Brodie Grundy

“Through ‘02 and ‘03, when we were part of a really tight team that wasn’t ultimately that talented but ... nearly snagged a premiership ... that was a tight a bond as I felt as a player.

“But I’ve got to say, the way I feel about the club now and about the group of people we have down there on and off the field, it’s as connected as I’ve been to the club in my time.”

McGuire acknowledged the sweeping review “put us under the blowtorch”.

“When you have those situations everybody has a say,” he said.

Captain Scott Pendlebury this week gave a rare insight into the effect the fierce speculation can have on a playing group.

“I wouldn’t have been shocked either way if Round 3 he was re-signed, or Round 3 he had have got the arse because you just didn’t know,” Pendlebury told the Jock & Journo podcast.

“No one knew what was going to happen and that is pretty unsettling for a playing group, and it wasn’t (just) Bucks, it was all the coaches as well.

“It feels like we’re back to being a football club that not everyone’s talking about every single day.”

McGuire said: “That can’t not affect young players. It’s also family and friends and all those things.

Eddie McGuire says small changes have made the biggest differences at Collingwood

“But we’ve been able to go through it. We were criticised for it taking too long and whether enough decisions being made, but we didn’t worry about that.

“We did it on our time frame, got the right people in and gave them autonomy.

“We were totally honest with ourselves, questioned ourselves and each other and came to a new philosophy that is so far making the place a better place to be.

“Sometimes you just need to change things around a little bit and change the focus.

“I often say to people, you jump in the shower some mornings and you’re in a bad mood and your favourite song comes on and you get out singing, or you get in in a good mood and you stub your toe and shampoo goes in your eyes and you get out in a bad mood.

“It can just be a frame of mind.”

Going into round 11 in 2017, Collingwood was 4-6. In 2018 they sat 6-4. When it comes to win-loss it’s not a monumental difference.

But this is a 6-4 of substance. Stephenson’s pace, Matthew Scharenberg is delivering on potential, de Goey has shown matchwinning qualities, Tom Phillips has gone to another level, Sam Murray has proven his worth, Will Hoskin-Elliott has goaled in every game and the list goes on.

“The style of play was upsetting everyone from the coaches to the players to the fans for different reasons. No one seemed to like how we were playing in the last couple of years,” McGuire said.

“But we’ve played an attractive brand of football.

“It’s good to go and watch the Pies play again.”

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