What point of an AFL season is too soon to suggest that a coach’s job could be on the line? If you’re Eddie McGuire and you happen to be said coach’s boss, “the Tuesday following round three” would appear to be the answer.
In a strange appearance on Fox Footy’s AFL360 this week – one McGuire intended primarily as a defence of the club and its embattled coach – the Collingwood president told host Gerard Whately he would have “no problem at all” sacking Nathan Buckley if the situation demanded it.
A statement that followed soon after was every bit as interesting. McGuire said: “If there is one person on the face of God’s earth who I don’t have to worry about doing the right thing for Collingwood football club, it’s Nathan Buckley.” From this McGuire could be assumed to be saying that Buckley is currently offering his sincerest efforts, but perhaps also that should on-field fortunes slide further in 2016, “doing the right thing” might have less favourable implications.
“Mug clubs make rash decisions,” McGuire reminded us. “Let’s just be cool and calm about it ... This [a sacking] is not even on the agenda ... we have full faith in Bucks.”
They are statements it might pay to keep at hand as Collingwood face a tricky month: a hiding-to-nothing pair of games against Melbourne and Essendon, a daunting Perth trip to face West Coast and the big-game atmosphere of their oldest rival Carlton.
If Pies fans adore McGuire they are within their rights, because what he’s turned the club into through hard work and bloody-minded perseverance is undeniable. But where his and Buckley’s jobs differ markedly is in the consequences of non-performance. Collingwood members are loyal beyond reason and a downturn on the balance sheet would barely be remarked upon by media and fans. But missing a third successive finals series – even for reasons not entirely controllable – carries far graver consequences.
In last week’s loss to St Kilda – where the Saints marched away with the game in the third term despite the fact that they were two men down – what really resonated was that no man is more reliant on his underlings than one in charge of young footballers. Former US college coach Clipper Smith hit on this when he was asked whether he missed the cut and thrust of the action once he was done as a coach.
“I did at first,” he said, “but after a while – well you can’t imagine how it feels not to have to watch an 18-year-old kid run out on that field with your salary check fluttering between his fingers.”
And we really should disabuse ourselves of the idea that coaches “lose” players, as has been suggested of Buckley at various stages in the last few years. What is a player who won’t take instruction from a straight-shooting, Brownlow-medal-winning great of the game worth anyway? And is he also ignoring the assistants, line coaches and hordes of attachés at the disposal of players at one of the best-resourced sporting clubs in Australia?
An old cliche that would be better explored here is that of Premiership-hungry clubs looking to the prodigal son to light the path. Time and time again we’ve been shown that it’s a fool’s errand in the professional era. Favourite sons scattered among the wreckage of the last few decades include Michael Voss, Matthew Primus, Brett Ratten, Bernie Quinlan, Alex Jesaulenko, Wayne Schimmelbusch, Kevin Bartlett and, at the Pies again, Tony Shaw.
In the past 25 years only three men have returned to coach a club they played for and steered it to a premiership – Dennis Pagan, Paul Roos and John Worsfold.
And even the imposing Worsfold was eventually worn down by pressures, including but not limited to simply being John Worsfold – avatar for everything fearsome and admired about the Eagles, and the guy who always kept his head as everyone else around him lost theirs. When he quit he was so worn down by the job that he hinted he never wanted to coach again. He looked gaunt, sickly and exhausted, like a man who’d been strapped to a dentist’s chair for a decade and forced to watch Karl Langdon’s Vista Blinds TV adverts on an endless loop, Clockwork Orange style. That’s what this job does to them. That’s what we do to them.
On Tuesday McGuire called the type of pressure Buckley is under “a privilege”, which in his unique form of Antipodean Gordon Gekko management-speak, probably counts as encouragement. But for Buckley, having so much of it piled on must also encroach on the mental space required to do his job.
Collingwood’s task against the Demons this week is not a straightforward one, as Roos’s side showed well in their barnstorming comeback last week against North Melbourne. Gone are the days when Buckley could perhaps have adapted the famous Alex Ferguson line whenever Manchester United played Tottenham to read: “Lads, it’s Melbourne.” McGuire suggested that “anything could happen” at the weekend and that such uncertainty was “exciting”. For some more than others.
Photograph of the week
The agony and the ecstasy. It was a bittersweet moment for AFL fans as the thrilling finish between Hawthorn and the Bulldogs in round three gave way to the realisation that popular Dogs captain Robert Murphy had seriously injured his knee, but what a moment for young Hawk James Sicily. In this Michael Dodge photo the emerging forward enjoys a brief moment of solitary jubilation before being swamped by teammates after kicking the game-winner.
Quote of the week
I think as we all know – and I say this as a former mediocre rugby player – AFL is the most exciting football code.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull unwittingly kickstarts the hoary old code wars debate at the announcement of Port Adelaide’s China venture.
Bits and bobs
Inside 50 likes to keep a close eye on the footy-related trinkets and tchotches that end up on the auction room floors and there are some gems appearing next month at the Mossgreen auction house in Melbourne. Of interest to Collingwood fans will be Dick Condon’s 1906 Pies guernsey – believed to be the earliest known example – which might fetch 20,0000 or more, roughly double the figure expected for teammate Dick Lee’s 1910 premiership cufflinks – a sadly bygone tradition but probably a task slightly beyond the trembling hands of the AusKick kiddies up on the presentation dais.
Our interest was piqued by a range of No 9 guernseys worn by Hawthorn’s Brownlow-winning premiership star and everybody’s favourite Dimmeys and Forges brand ambassador Robert DiPierdomenico. The 1980s woollen numbers will set buyers back between an estimated $2,000 and 4,000 (plus buyer’s premium), but what really took our fancy was the lace-up version (nope, still not a great look over the top of a pastel business shirt) and the taxidermy hawk, which we sincerely hope has graced the mantelpiece at Chez Dipper at some stage. And will the eventual buyer make sure that the inanimate pet is soon signed up for a 2016 membership? If you want to find out, as the man himself would say, BE THERE!
And rounding out the week, Port Adelaide will play a 2017 Premiership season game in China, intriguing in many respects, not least the fact that the Power won’t be forced to forfeit a home game in the process of extending a corporate relationship with Shanghai Cred Real Estate. Nice work if you can get it. Which raises the question of who will play them and to what benefit? Might Brisbane relish the prospect of a week of AFL action in which they remain undefeated in their home country?
