Is Buckley and his band of muppet coaches gone yet?
Whichever way you slice it, whether the players can't follow the game-plan that Bucks wants, or whether what we witness on the ground is actually Buckley's game-plan, this mess is still on Buckley.
A few years back I was a Buckley supporter, but I've gone more than full circle now, to the point that I think he's actually a fraud or delusional...one or the other. He seems incapable of seeing or accepting his failures, and his interpretation of events that play out in a match is "perplexing", as Mike Gleeson notes in his article below.
He's been on over 1 million bucks for 10 years, and we are in a desperate state as a footy club in just about every football aspect...personnel, coaching, recruiting, team-selection, not to mention team performance. He's the reason that players that loved the club ended up being traded, and demonstrated with their performances at their new clubs that Buckley's judgment was wrong...Heath Shaw, Seedsman, Beams, come to mind. In hindsight we should have known that a coach that cannot manage relationships with different personality types, doesn't augur well for our future success.
If Buckley was an honorable person, he would step down immediately. To those that think they are harsh words for a club legend, I say sorry the club doesn't owe Buckley anything...the opposite in fact - Buckley owes the club immeasurably. And the best thing he could do right now for Collingwood is step down.
I find listening to Buckley talk for more than 5mins numbingly boring. He sounds so monotone and uninspiring, and so disconnected from reality that I shudder to think what the players would feel working under him. It's clear the players are over-coached with the way they process decisions on the field. It's excruciating to watch. Couple that with a personality type that suggests obstinance and perfectionism, and it's obvious that Buckley's claim that he "would walk if it was in the best interests of the blub" is pure fantasy.
I know people have not broached the subject, but the man has gone through a marriage breakup. By all accounts that kind of event can be devastating to one's mental state...has it had an effect on his coaching? Regardless, the club is too big to be shackled to the whims and fortunes, and mental state of a coach that is dragging down a once-proud club.
So it must be, adios Bucks, good luck with your next professional venture. I'm sure the 15million that you got paid by Collingwood will appease any feelings of hurt, failure, loss of pride.
I thought Mike Gleeson's article in TheAge sums it up how we are going on the field:
The unwatchables
If people weren’t suffering enough in ‘Lockdown 4.0’, they had to endure the horrible, turgid, almost unwatchable display of Collingwood-Geelong.
It was perplexing, again, to hear the Collingwood coach say afterwards that the team was playing a better brand of football. The brand that delivered one goal in three quarters was a brand to challenge even the true believers. Yes, they were inaccurate but the slow, sideways ball movement and adventureless play was excruciating to watch.
The Magpies’ late flurry of goals was in some ways irrelevant because they came in junk time. In another way, they suggested that - as with last week against Port Adelaide - only once the game was lost and had to be won did the team find some urgency.
