Further, I
am from an era where you learn from an early age, you either support
Collingwood or you support the team playing against Collingwood.
And being a
Melbourne supporter, this dislike of Collingwood runs deeply, being born from a
long, long rivalry as a result of very many Grand Finals between the two clubs.
I was at the
1970 Grand Final and even though my club wasn’t involved, witnessing
Collingwood lose after having a seemingly un-beatable half time lead was pure
joy. Of almost equal enjoyment was the loss they suffered in the 1979 Grand
Final and that goal scored after the ball had crossed (allegedly) the boundary
line.
I enjoy
Collingwood losing.
Secondly, I
do not particularly like Nathan Buckley. I absolutely acknowledge his brilliance
as a player. He played hard and fair. Was quick, agile, a good mark, good on the
ground and his kicking and hand skills of both sides of his body was as good as
it gets
My dislike
of him is more to do with his off filed comments when drafted by Brisbane. He
seemed to believe he was too good to be playing outside of Melbourne for one of
the then smaller clubs. After much speculation, he did play the first season of
his career with Brisbane, and from memory, won their best and fairest. The
reality is, he was always going to Collingwood.
The fact
therefore I am about to defend Collingwood may surprise those who have read this
far.
Nathan
Buckley is under pressure to retain his role as Collingwood Head Coach. It’s
true, finals success has not come under Buckley. His game plan is under
scrutiny, as are recent recruitment decisions.
However, the
usual dialogue leading up to the sacking of a Coach is that they ‘have lost the
players’ and the ‘players are not playing for the coach’.
I am seeing
players with skill sets that do not hold up consistently and who kick for goal
poorly, consistently.
I am also
seeing a playing group that are giving an enormous effort, running hard on and
off the ball and competing intensely in each contest. This is the complete
opposite of when a coach loses the players or are not playing for the coach. It
is the effort and intensity of competition that falls away and this is simply
not the case.
Nathan
Buckley has an exceptionally high Football Intellect. He is surrounded by a
quality group of Assistant Coaches. He will have in place a well thought
through and an appropriate, modern game plan. The Coaching team will be
coaching to this too
Buckley has a group of players giving their all, and doing so overtly, week in week out.
What he doesn’t
have is a group of players with either the skills necessary, or the ability to
execute skills under pressure in order to deliver the game plan needed for
success – yet.
Get off
Nathan Buckley’s back. He can Coach.
Mark
Thompson and Alastair Clarkson were in very similar situations at Geelong and
Hawthorn respectively and when it could have gone either way, their club
re-signed them and supported them totally. Both went on to win multiple
Premierships.
Collingwood,
do the same and re-sign Nathan Buckley for 2, even 3 years.
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