Nathan Buckley on Wednesday after the press conference announcing his departure as Magpie coach. Photo: AFL MEDIA.
Nathan Buckley was always going to be up against it to hang on to his job beyond 2021.
It would have been an unprecedented achievement given the only two other men in the history of the VFL/AFL to make it to a 10th season as coach of their respective clubs without having won a premiership, Neale Daniher (Melbourne) and Brad Scott (North Melbourne), failed to see out their final years in charge.
And in the end that same fate has befallen Buckley who will coach his 218th and final game for Collingwood, coincidentally on Queen’s Birthday – a day which has become synonymous with Daniher in the past seven years.
The seeds of Buckley’s demise were planted last November during a tumultuous trade period which saw the Magpies offload key players Adam Treloar, Jaidyn Stephenson and Tom Phillips in a devastating fire sale as a result of salary cap mismanagement from which, new football chief Graham Wright admits, the club is still suffering a “hangover”.
It’s been clear as day how keenly the loss of that trio has been felt this season with Collingwood crying out for leg speed that all three possess in spades, and of which their new clubs have been the beneficiaries.
It has forced the Magpies to play a dull, drab, heavily-defensive game style for the most part and saw them nosedive to 2-9 after round 11 – not exactly the kind of win-loss record an out-of-contract coach could use for leverage for a new deal.
There have no doubt been other factors at play at the Holden Centre which have contributed to Collingwood’s annus horribilis.
The active civil war at board level, precipitated by long-time president Eddie McGuire stepping down on the back of the scathing “Do Better” report which revealed systemic racism had existed at the club for many years under his watch, has been the prime example.
But the handling of Treloar’s departure, in particular, and the way Buckley spoke about him in the aftermath seemed to backfire spectacularly on the field this year for the departing Collingwood coach.
Soon after joining the Bulldogs, a hurt Treloar told the media that Buckley told him that senior players wanted him out of the club, a claim which was later disputed by Magpie star Taylor Adams.
Collingwood players certainly played like a bunch of guys this year who felt like they had been thrown under the bus by Buckley. Their general lack of spirit and fight was palpable, and put bluntly, they didn’t look like they were playing for their coach anymore.
A sense of playing with one arm tied behind their backs as a result of the exits of Stephenson and Phillips, too, and not adequately replacing any of those three walk-up starts to the best 22, only served to foment the hopelessness and futility of the 2021 season.
It was a perfect storm that Buckley ultimately wouldn’t be able to emerge from with his job.
But despite finishing with a winning percentage of 53.92, the worst of Collingwood’s seven coaches who coached the club in at least 100 games, there were plenty of highlights in the Buckley reign.
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He took his side to a preliminary final in his first year in charge and after a four-year finals absence between 2014-17, he survived a review of the football department and secured a new two-year deal which led to the most successful period of his coaching tenure.
Buckley famously guided the Magpies to the 2018 grand final after sensationally defeating that year’s flag favourites Richmond in a memorable preliminary final which was dominated by big American Mason Cox.
Collingwood came agonisingly close to winning the flag a week later, but after kicking the first five goals of the grand final against West Coast, its dreams were eventually dashed by Dom Sheed’s iconic goal at the death.
Buckley would guide the Pies to another preliminary final in 2019, after another impressive finals win over Geelong, but their hopes of derailing consecutive Richmond Septembers, this time in a grand final, went up in smoke. This time around they would be the ones on the receiving end of an upset result in a preliminary final – at the hands of an undermanned GWS outfit.
But the Magpies would produce one more heroic finals performance under Buckley when they travelled to Perth last year under strict quarantine rules, earning themselves the unflattering moniker “Dirty Pies”, and knocked off West Coast by one point in an epic elimination final.
The Cats would avenge their 2019 qualifying final defeat a week later with a thumping 68-point win in the semi-finals, restricting Collingwood to a solitary goal until early into the final quarter.
After a tenure comprising its fair share of near-misses, again like Daniher and Scott, Buckley will finish up on 218 games coached, which places him fifth at Collingwood, just six shy of the legendary Leigh Matthews.
So who will the Magpies target next to replace Buckley? In the short-term, assistant coach Robert Harvey will take over the reins to become the 368th VFL/AFL coach.
Historically, when an interim coach gets such a good portion of the season in charge, his chances of assuming the role on a full-time basis are enhanced considerably, especially if the team wins more than it loses, which often happens in these situations.
But despite the roaring success Paul Roos became at Sydney in similar circumstances, the most recent cases of Rhyce Shaw and David Teague will likely make Collingwood a lot more gun-shy in installing Harvey permanently.
Collingwood is a big club and when you look at its last four coaches – Buckley, Malthouse, Shaw, Matthews – a big name has been a prerequisite for the job over the past 36 years.
Based on that, the obvious candidates would be Alastair Clarkson and Ross Lyon.
Lyon is a career coach and has been waiting in the wings for the past two seasons. His last four years at Fremantle would definitely make Collingwood wary, given he only won 29 games out of 87 at a woeful 33 per cent, but he did guide the Dockers to their one and only grand final in 2013 and took St Kilda to three grand finals as well (including a replay).
Clarkson is still contracted at Hawthorn for next year, but now that at least one coaching vacancy has already opened up for the 2022 season, it might prompt Hawthorn to expedite its handover to Sam Mitchell.
The Hawks are in for a long, drawn-out rebuild and Clarkson, who has always been about winning flags and is clearly a draft sceptic based on his recruiting strategy in recent years, might see this as the perfect time for a new challenge.
However, if Clarkson decides to stick around at Waverley Park for the 2022 season, then would the Magpies then try and hire Mitchell as their replacement for Buckley? There would be parallels there with Matthews, who was also a recently-retired Hawthorn champion when he took over the reins in 1986.
In a fascinating twist, this whole situation could see Collingwood inadvertently force Hawthorn to choose between two of its club greats to lead the Hawks beyond 2021.
