Ok everyone, just wanted to let you all know that it has been posted on the Bombertalk Forum that Buckley and Tarrant have had a fight:
"yeah folks the rumour is that Tarrant and Buckley had another blue during the week after training. Its believed that Tarrant issued Eddie with the ultimatum that he will walk out of the club at the end of the season if Buckley stays.
If he does happen to walk out at the end of the season its expected that he will go to Carlton to join former Pioneer Teammate Jordan Doering. Its believed that Carlton are willing to give Ryan Houlihan and Simon Beaumont in return."
What do you all think? Surely, it can't be true!!!
[This message has been edited by kristin5 (edited 28 June 2001).]
Buckley and Tarrant Rumour
Moderator: bbmods
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Mike
- Posts: 3137
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- Location: Lilydale, Tas.
- Has liked: 89 times
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At the moment Kristin, I wouldn't even give it thinking time.
There's a poster on BigFooty who's been trying to get this rumour off the ground and I wouldn't be surprised if he's posting on other forums to give himself credibility.
He's already had a go on here, but I deleted the post before he'd taken his finger off the submit button.
[This message has been edited by Mike (edited 28 June 2001).]
There's a poster on BigFooty who's been trying to get this rumour off the ground and I wouldn't be surprised if he's posting on other forums to give himself credibility.
He's already had a go on here, but I deleted the post before he'd taken his finger off the submit button.
[This message has been edited by Mike (edited 28 June 2001).]
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Kristin5
- Posts: 2117
- Joined: Thu Apr 19, 2001 6:01 pm
Yeah, like I've just told JLC, I think it's just another beat up by an Essendon loser - I think he's tried to start similar rumours before. But it does worry me slightly, because of the similarities with what was supposed to have happened between Willo and Bucks (that's probably why he started this rumour I guess).
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magpie jeff
lets not go there remember its just a rumour!!!
both are wonderful collingwood players.
WE MARCH WITH PRIDE,WE MARCH WITH LOVE,WHEN IT COMES TO OUR COLLINGWOOD WE FOREVER MARCH ! we will never forget our great number #42...GO YOU BLOODY PIES yeaaah LETS KICK ASS.lets kill the bloody bastards !!
http://www.mp3.com/joffa
both are wonderful collingwood players.
WE MARCH WITH PRIDE,WE MARCH WITH LOVE,WHEN IT COMES TO OUR COLLINGWOOD WE FOREVER MARCH ! we will never forget our great number #42...GO YOU BLOODY PIES yeaaah LETS KICK ASS.lets kill the bloody bastards !!
http://www.mp3.com/joffa
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dillo_09
- Posts: 1001
- Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2001 6:01 pm
- Location: Whittington
Guys and Gals,
Lets not get involved with this petty bullshit and rumour-mongering.
As Mike said its others trying to stir the pot and trying to cause internal rift and division within the great Collingwood Football Club.
Do you all want to know why people are doing this?
Its cause they are scared to death of how awesome and strong we are becoming. They know we will be dominating both on and off the feild in the near future and they want to stop it any way they can!!!
Bucks, if you read this it would be great to get a post from you that quashes the roumour once and for all.
Go Pies
Dillo
Lets not get involved with this petty bullshit and rumour-mongering.
As Mike said its others trying to stir the pot and trying to cause internal rift and division within the great Collingwood Football Club.
Do you all want to know why people are doing this?
Its cause they are scared to death of how awesome and strong we are becoming. They know we will be dominating both on and off the feild in the near future and they want to stop it any way they can!!!
Bucks, if you read this it would be great to get a post from you that quashes the roumour once and for all.
Go Pies
Dillo
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AlfAndrews
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Black_White
If this rumour is true, and I seriously doubt that it is, then just remember that Taz and Bucks are on long term contracts. To lose either would be a cruel blow but any team wishing to lay hands on them is going to have to trade big talent to even get to the trading table.
Footy is a business so let's take the view that we have valuable assets that can be used to strengthen the club.
As for this rumour, how many times does Taz have to deny that he has a problem with Bucks? And how stupid would he be to go to Eddie, Buckleys personal "Ice" man, and make him pick between the two? No fellow fans, it's all crap made to get us fighting amongst ourselves. We ARE coming and they'll do anything to divert us from our Premiership path!
-Craig
The Phoenix Is Arising
Footy is a business so let's take the view that we have valuable assets that can be used to strengthen the club.
As for this rumour, how many times does Taz have to deny that he has a problem with Bucks? And how stupid would he be to go to Eddie, Buckleys personal "Ice" man, and make him pick between the two? No fellow fans, it's all crap made to get us fighting amongst ourselves. We ARE coming and they'll do anything to divert us from our Premiership path!
-Craig
The Phoenix Is Arising
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junkboy75
- Posts: 840
- Joined: Sat May 26, 2001 6:01 pm
Nathan Buckley is one of the greatest ever players for the Collingwood Football Club. This article, by Martin Flanagan from the Age, explains why:
Nathan Buckley, captain of the Collingwood Football Club and winner of countless football medals (but not, significantly, the Brownlow), meets me with a grin.
He's solidly built, not that tall, with a way of speaking that makes his words sound as if they come from a certain depth within himself. His manner is polite and friendly.
Among the many stereotypes concerning the traditional footballer that Buckley offends is the fact that he has half a degree in applied science, having specialised in human movement.
He also has a couple of years of a town planning degree, but he studied that when he first left school and no one at that stage, with the exception of his father Ray, saw what he might become. Certainly, Buckley himself didn't.
Around the age of 15, as a reaction to his father, he gave up foot ball for tennis, relishing a game in which he was responsible to no one but himself. "We still talk about it," he said, with another of his trademark grins. "At the time, I thought he was very hard on me." Equally, he says he wouldn't be where he is now if it weren't for his father's influence.
Buckley describes himself as "very driven". Asked how much thought he has given to life after footy, Buckley replied: "Not one second's."
The power of his concentration, directed almost solely towards the present, has an effect on his memory. He saw his first AFL game in 1980. He can remember the scoreboard, the wooden seats, the backs of the people in front of him, but nothing of the game.
If I were to say he's Bradmanesque, I would be talking about Bradman the person, not Bradman the legend: a person of solitary ambition in a team game, a person who fixed his considerable intelligence on understanding a particular sport and what he was capable of within it.
In the magnificently understated words of Paul Kelly's song Bradman, when Buckley arrived in the AFL, "he was just a kid in from the sticks, just a kid with a plan".
Buckley's father, a former Woodville ruckman in Adelaide, was a professional footballer, moving around Australia. As a result, his son went to 13 different schools. It meant he was unable to build long-term relationships; if he wanted friends, he played footy.
In 1988, after he switched to tennis, his father, then living in Darwin, sent him as a boarder to Salesian Col lege at Sunbury to bolster his studies and help him "absorb the passion of Victorian footy culture".
The following year, while still at Salesian, he saw the famous home-and-away match between Malcolm Blight's Geelong and the Hawthorn side that would qualify as one of the teams of the century.
The Cats led by 60 points at half-time; Hawthorn overhauled them. Sitting two rows from the fence, 16-year-old Buckley knew he was seeing the game being played as well as it ever could be.
Even so, he was undersized and the following year he only scraped into the Port Adelaide under-19 grand final side when a regular wingman withdrew through injury.
His performance in that grand final was the first time he was conscious of having impressed the club. The following year, he was introduced to the Port seniors and the year after that he won the Magarey Medal, the SANFL's Brownlow.
That part of his history is well-known. What is less well-known is that during those three years, he also played in the Darwin competition during the summer months with a team called Southern Districts.
For the three years before his arrival in the AFL, he played football all year round.
Talking football with Nathan Buckley made me realise how archaic my football vocabulary is. I still have words like half-back flanker and ruck-rover in my head.
I imagine Buckley sees them as the rest of us see the Holden Monaro and the Valiant Charger. In style, his language is modern colloquial, but his use of words is thoughtful and precise.
Referring to a day when he was tagged by Carlton's Brett Ratten, he said: "It was before he (Ratten) became a ball-getting midfielder."
Buckley is explaining that whereas he stood three metres off the play at bounces, Ratten stood one metre off it. Buckley observed the Carlton player's skill at reading the ruckmen's hands in the air, the position of their bodies and that of the other players around him, his sense of the spaces available to him. To compete with Ratten, Buckley had to get closer to the contest.
In Buckley's view, being able to find new methods is the test of a player. It's why he sees longevity as being the key indicator of football success; to Buckley, a champion is "the bloke no one can quell".
What he got from Northern Territory football was alternative ways of playing the game.
"If you can pick up 20 touches as a midfielder in Darwin, it's a fair feat because NT football's nearly unreadable. You don't kick to a tall centre-half forward and crumb, or you didn't back then. Anything goes. The ball can go backwards 15 metres before it goes forward 40.
"Little passes - zip, zip, zip. You'd be trying to hit targets round the corner 20 metres away. You'd get it maybe one out of 10 times but players would play for the excitement of doing it just that once."
He's grinning as he talks, like a jazzman remembering an old tune on a piano. "The other nine times the ball would stay on the ground, but it wasn't worth collecting unless you'd paddled it past another player, and picking it up after three paddles going flat chat was always better than just getting it clean.
"Footy in Darwin was about enjoyment, about being a bit of a lair."
In the Darwin competition, he played as an "undersized centre half-forward".
He was a good mark, better than he is now. "I used to take plucks everywhere, used to love snapping the ball over my shoulder. I had a good sense around goals."
Ray Buckley laments that the highly structured nature of AFL football has caused some of the skills his son had in Darwin to drop away. When I relay this to another AFL coach, he laughs weakly at the thought that he has only ever seen the lesser Buckley, the diminished version. "Great player," he said, shaking his head.
In 1992, Buckley won the Magarey Medal and played in a Port Adel aide premiership team, but it was two other happenings that combined to shape his cast-iron ambition. In a back room of his grandmother's house, where he was living, he found a set of weights his uncle had left.
He started doing dumbbell curves, incline flies, sit-ups. It was the first time he had done something like that without being told to do so.
Having discovered his limits, he experienced a deep satisfaction in pushing himself beyond them.
Later, he applied this principle to learning how to do things on the field such as kicking goals from outside 50. That experience persuaded him of the power of self-discipline.
Even now, doing things in a game that are not natural to him gives him more satisfaction than doing things that are.
"You're the one who does it," he said, by way of explanation. "You had to make the decision to do it. It didn't come naturally."
What also happened in 1992 was that, after playing in the Northern Territory, he found South Australian football predictable and easy to read. "The ball'd go bang, long, from the back line, then cross to centre half-forward where there'd be a contest and it'd either go forward or there'd be a quick kick out of the pack.
"If you sat yourself 35 or 40 metres off centre half-forward, you'd get heaps of possessions from panic kicks that came out at 45 degrees towards the wing."
The following year, his first in the AFL, he played with Brisbane, won the Rising Star award and, at season's end, transferred to Collingwood after a chorus of clubs had bid for his services.
People then, and to some extent now, didn't know what to make of Buckley. There was something about him that didn't sit easily with the culture of the game.
I recall a commentator saying Buckley could be the new breed of football professional, the one who sells his services to a new club every couple of years.
It was rumored he had trouble getting on with teammates. Crowds booed him. The idea got around that he was a braggart, but that's not how I found him.
What I found was a person who actually says what he thinks, a quality I've met it in other exceptional sportsmen such as Irish soccer player George Best.
He says what he knows; equally, he says what he doesn't know. The person he describes as his best mate, a former flat-mate he met after coming to Collingwood, has spent the past four years travelling the world.
That idea intrigues Buckley, the vastness of the world beyond his own. He grins and shakes his head like a kid outside the window of a shop he's never been in.
Later, when we talk about some of the famous names on the grandstands around Victoria Park, he's embarrassed to say he hasn't read as much about Collingwood's history as he should have. He respects knowledge.
What this former student of human movement knows about is the game of Australian football. He enjoys watching soccer, but believes the Australian game is "more com plete" and is strongly against further rule changes.
He believes the game is always evolving in one direction or another. The change of direction occurs when an individual appears who reads the play so brilliantly that he undoes all the systems of play erected around him. "The game," said Buckley, "always finds its way."
He believes a player such as Peter Daicos would undo the defensive tactic known as flooding. "The ball's on the ground a lot and it wouldn't matter to him if there were one, two or six players around - he'd find a way."
Daicos, in Buckley's estimation, was wholly unpredictable and, as such, one of those blokes who cannot be quelled.
Buckley knows more about football than I do. I suspect he knows more than the umpires who mysteriously fail to give him the Brownlow votes that have seemed his due.
He can be seen arguing with them on the field, but it must be hard knowing more about a game than those supposedly in charge of it. Before the start of this season, Collingwood sent Buckley to do a course to assist his captaining. There were stories that other Collingwood players, notably Chris Tarrant, found him overbearing, but it must be difficult, too, when so few players match your natural gifts, your desire for success, or your powers of application.
The question of the relationship of individuals to teams clearly vexes him, causing him to pause and search for words. "I know in myself that all along my thought process was to benefit the team and prepare myself as best I possibly could for the benefit of the team.
"People miss out on the last six words. What I would say now is that my focus is to play the best I can to enable my teammates to be better."
He says that perhaps he was abrasive in his methods when he began, but he clings to something Robert Walls, his coach at Brisbane, said: "Nathan Buckley embarrasses other players with his commitment to the game."
I ask him if he wishes he had stuck to tennis. If he had been anywhere near as good at that game as he is at football, he would have procured enormous wealth, world fame. His answer is a swift and unerring no. He prefers footy. Why? "Because it's a team game."
This is the paradox of Nathan Buckley, or rather the first of them - when he was young and forever the new kid in town, he played footy to make friends, but at the same time the transient nature of his upbringing led him to conceive of the game in a solitary way.
The second paradox of Buckley's career is that he is, in football terms, a stateless person. It should be remembered he gave strong support to the Allies concept - that is, the combined side that made up the fourth team in the state-of-origin series.
More recently, he has been to the fore in the modified rules Test series with Ireland. No one can question his commitment to the cause of Australian football.
The third paradox of Buckley's career is that this most ambitious and capable of players should have committed himself to a famous club during one of the most abject lulls in its history.
As he said: "I came here to play in finals and be part of the continuing glory of the Collingwood Football Club. So far, we've both missed the boat." And, at the age of 28, his time in the game is not unlimited.
We talk about great games. Buckley says great games - the ones people remember - always have something riding on them. They're usually finals.
He has played only one final, in 1994, his first year at Collingwood, against West Coast in Perth; Collingwood lost narrowly. Each year since, the biggest game of Buckley's season has been the Anzac Day match, which, as he says, is like a final but isn't one.
Nevertheless, this year's Anzac Day match was one of the best of the season to date. I put it to him that James Hird won the match for Essendon. "Yeah," he said ruefully, looking away and adding half-humorously, "bastard".
If Buckley is, or has been, hard on others, people who know him are quick to point out how hard he is on himself.
For a moment, he doesn't speak, then he offers: "In the last quarter, I was on Hird at the stop plays."
At any time in the history of the game, there are only a handful of great players and at this time, in this town, the talk is basically about just two of them, Buckley and Hird.
I suggest that when games are at the point of being decided, Hird knows how to win them. Again, he agreed. "It's something you learn from being in that position," he said, adding, "but you have to be good enough to execute it."
He doesn't say it, but clearly his team hasn't been in the position nearly as often for him to master that dynamic to the same extent.
In the final term of the Anzac Day match, Hird kicked a goal off one step around his body. He also handballed over a defender's head in such a way that the ball bounced up into the arms of a teammate running towards goal.
Buckley wonders about Hird, where he got his flair from, where or how he learnt the game. He has a photo of a school team he played for in Canberra, the Ainslie under 13s; the kid beside him is snowy- haired James Hird.
What does he remem ber about him? "Nothing," he said flatly, in a way that suggests he has tried.
The match Buckley nominates as his most memorable was one he is confident no one will remember, an Ansett Cup game earlier this year in Western Australia. Collingwood beat West Coast in Perth for the first time in nearly a decade, but more to the point it was, in Buckley's estimation, the game in which Josh Fraser stood up and a couple of other young players showed a bit.
Soon after we met in the football offices at Victoria Park, we ran into Collingwood's talented young ruckman. Buckley almost shouted with joy at the sight of him. "Joshua!" he said, beaming with what almost looked like fatherly pride.
Buckley says he is the most optimistic he has been since he came to Collingwood and, this year, the Pies are a good chance to play in the finals. If they do, I'm going along to see him play, because one thing I know for sure about Nathan Buckley: when he's gone, in the Australian way, we'll say how good he was.
"everyone's a winner hot pies"
Nathan Buckley, captain of the Collingwood Football Club and winner of countless football medals (but not, significantly, the Brownlow), meets me with a grin.
He's solidly built, not that tall, with a way of speaking that makes his words sound as if they come from a certain depth within himself. His manner is polite and friendly.
Among the many stereotypes concerning the traditional footballer that Buckley offends is the fact that he has half a degree in applied science, having specialised in human movement.
He also has a couple of years of a town planning degree, but he studied that when he first left school and no one at that stage, with the exception of his father Ray, saw what he might become. Certainly, Buckley himself didn't.
Around the age of 15, as a reaction to his father, he gave up foot ball for tennis, relishing a game in which he was responsible to no one but himself. "We still talk about it," he said, with another of his trademark grins. "At the time, I thought he was very hard on me." Equally, he says he wouldn't be where he is now if it weren't for his father's influence.
Buckley describes himself as "very driven". Asked how much thought he has given to life after footy, Buckley replied: "Not one second's."
The power of his concentration, directed almost solely towards the present, has an effect on his memory. He saw his first AFL game in 1980. He can remember the scoreboard, the wooden seats, the backs of the people in front of him, but nothing of the game.
If I were to say he's Bradmanesque, I would be talking about Bradman the person, not Bradman the legend: a person of solitary ambition in a team game, a person who fixed his considerable intelligence on understanding a particular sport and what he was capable of within it.
In the magnificently understated words of Paul Kelly's song Bradman, when Buckley arrived in the AFL, "he was just a kid in from the sticks, just a kid with a plan".
Buckley's father, a former Woodville ruckman in Adelaide, was a professional footballer, moving around Australia. As a result, his son went to 13 different schools. It meant he was unable to build long-term relationships; if he wanted friends, he played footy.
In 1988, after he switched to tennis, his father, then living in Darwin, sent him as a boarder to Salesian Col lege at Sunbury to bolster his studies and help him "absorb the passion of Victorian footy culture".
The following year, while still at Salesian, he saw the famous home-and-away match between Malcolm Blight's Geelong and the Hawthorn side that would qualify as one of the teams of the century.
The Cats led by 60 points at half-time; Hawthorn overhauled them. Sitting two rows from the fence, 16-year-old Buckley knew he was seeing the game being played as well as it ever could be.
Even so, he was undersized and the following year he only scraped into the Port Adelaide under-19 grand final side when a regular wingman withdrew through injury.
His performance in that grand final was the first time he was conscious of having impressed the club. The following year, he was introduced to the Port seniors and the year after that he won the Magarey Medal, the SANFL's Brownlow.
That part of his history is well-known. What is less well-known is that during those three years, he also played in the Darwin competition during the summer months with a team called Southern Districts.
For the three years before his arrival in the AFL, he played football all year round.
Talking football with Nathan Buckley made me realise how archaic my football vocabulary is. I still have words like half-back flanker and ruck-rover in my head.
I imagine Buckley sees them as the rest of us see the Holden Monaro and the Valiant Charger. In style, his language is modern colloquial, but his use of words is thoughtful and precise.
Referring to a day when he was tagged by Carlton's Brett Ratten, he said: "It was before he (Ratten) became a ball-getting midfielder."
Buckley is explaining that whereas he stood three metres off the play at bounces, Ratten stood one metre off it. Buckley observed the Carlton player's skill at reading the ruckmen's hands in the air, the position of their bodies and that of the other players around him, his sense of the spaces available to him. To compete with Ratten, Buckley had to get closer to the contest.
In Buckley's view, being able to find new methods is the test of a player. It's why he sees longevity as being the key indicator of football success; to Buckley, a champion is "the bloke no one can quell".
What he got from Northern Territory football was alternative ways of playing the game.
"If you can pick up 20 touches as a midfielder in Darwin, it's a fair feat because NT football's nearly unreadable. You don't kick to a tall centre-half forward and crumb, or you didn't back then. Anything goes. The ball can go backwards 15 metres before it goes forward 40.
"Little passes - zip, zip, zip. You'd be trying to hit targets round the corner 20 metres away. You'd get it maybe one out of 10 times but players would play for the excitement of doing it just that once."
He's grinning as he talks, like a jazzman remembering an old tune on a piano. "The other nine times the ball would stay on the ground, but it wasn't worth collecting unless you'd paddled it past another player, and picking it up after three paddles going flat chat was always better than just getting it clean.
"Footy in Darwin was about enjoyment, about being a bit of a lair."
In the Darwin competition, he played as an "undersized centre half-forward".
He was a good mark, better than he is now. "I used to take plucks everywhere, used to love snapping the ball over my shoulder. I had a good sense around goals."
Ray Buckley laments that the highly structured nature of AFL football has caused some of the skills his son had in Darwin to drop away. When I relay this to another AFL coach, he laughs weakly at the thought that he has only ever seen the lesser Buckley, the diminished version. "Great player," he said, shaking his head.
In 1992, Buckley won the Magarey Medal and played in a Port Adel aide premiership team, but it was two other happenings that combined to shape his cast-iron ambition. In a back room of his grandmother's house, where he was living, he found a set of weights his uncle had left.
He started doing dumbbell curves, incline flies, sit-ups. It was the first time he had done something like that without being told to do so.
Having discovered his limits, he experienced a deep satisfaction in pushing himself beyond them.
Later, he applied this principle to learning how to do things on the field such as kicking goals from outside 50. That experience persuaded him of the power of self-discipline.
Even now, doing things in a game that are not natural to him gives him more satisfaction than doing things that are.
"You're the one who does it," he said, by way of explanation. "You had to make the decision to do it. It didn't come naturally."
What also happened in 1992 was that, after playing in the Northern Territory, he found South Australian football predictable and easy to read. "The ball'd go bang, long, from the back line, then cross to centre half-forward where there'd be a contest and it'd either go forward or there'd be a quick kick out of the pack.
"If you sat yourself 35 or 40 metres off centre half-forward, you'd get heaps of possessions from panic kicks that came out at 45 degrees towards the wing."
The following year, his first in the AFL, he played with Brisbane, won the Rising Star award and, at season's end, transferred to Collingwood after a chorus of clubs had bid for his services.
People then, and to some extent now, didn't know what to make of Buckley. There was something about him that didn't sit easily with the culture of the game.
I recall a commentator saying Buckley could be the new breed of football professional, the one who sells his services to a new club every couple of years.
It was rumored he had trouble getting on with teammates. Crowds booed him. The idea got around that he was a braggart, but that's not how I found him.
What I found was a person who actually says what he thinks, a quality I've met it in other exceptional sportsmen such as Irish soccer player George Best.
He says what he knows; equally, he says what he doesn't know. The person he describes as his best mate, a former flat-mate he met after coming to Collingwood, has spent the past four years travelling the world.
That idea intrigues Buckley, the vastness of the world beyond his own. He grins and shakes his head like a kid outside the window of a shop he's never been in.
Later, when we talk about some of the famous names on the grandstands around Victoria Park, he's embarrassed to say he hasn't read as much about Collingwood's history as he should have. He respects knowledge.
What this former student of human movement knows about is the game of Australian football. He enjoys watching soccer, but believes the Australian game is "more com plete" and is strongly against further rule changes.
He believes the game is always evolving in one direction or another. The change of direction occurs when an individual appears who reads the play so brilliantly that he undoes all the systems of play erected around him. "The game," said Buckley, "always finds its way."
He believes a player such as Peter Daicos would undo the defensive tactic known as flooding. "The ball's on the ground a lot and it wouldn't matter to him if there were one, two or six players around - he'd find a way."
Daicos, in Buckley's estimation, was wholly unpredictable and, as such, one of those blokes who cannot be quelled.
Buckley knows more about football than I do. I suspect he knows more than the umpires who mysteriously fail to give him the Brownlow votes that have seemed his due.
He can be seen arguing with them on the field, but it must be hard knowing more about a game than those supposedly in charge of it. Before the start of this season, Collingwood sent Buckley to do a course to assist his captaining. There were stories that other Collingwood players, notably Chris Tarrant, found him overbearing, but it must be difficult, too, when so few players match your natural gifts, your desire for success, or your powers of application.
The question of the relationship of individuals to teams clearly vexes him, causing him to pause and search for words. "I know in myself that all along my thought process was to benefit the team and prepare myself as best I possibly could for the benefit of the team.
"People miss out on the last six words. What I would say now is that my focus is to play the best I can to enable my teammates to be better."
He says that perhaps he was abrasive in his methods when he began, but he clings to something Robert Walls, his coach at Brisbane, said: "Nathan Buckley embarrasses other players with his commitment to the game."
I ask him if he wishes he had stuck to tennis. If he had been anywhere near as good at that game as he is at football, he would have procured enormous wealth, world fame. His answer is a swift and unerring no. He prefers footy. Why? "Because it's a team game."
This is the paradox of Nathan Buckley, or rather the first of them - when he was young and forever the new kid in town, he played footy to make friends, but at the same time the transient nature of his upbringing led him to conceive of the game in a solitary way.
The second paradox of Buckley's career is that he is, in football terms, a stateless person. It should be remembered he gave strong support to the Allies concept - that is, the combined side that made up the fourth team in the state-of-origin series.
More recently, he has been to the fore in the modified rules Test series with Ireland. No one can question his commitment to the cause of Australian football.
The third paradox of Buckley's career is that this most ambitious and capable of players should have committed himself to a famous club during one of the most abject lulls in its history.
As he said: "I came here to play in finals and be part of the continuing glory of the Collingwood Football Club. So far, we've both missed the boat." And, at the age of 28, his time in the game is not unlimited.
We talk about great games. Buckley says great games - the ones people remember - always have something riding on them. They're usually finals.
He has played only one final, in 1994, his first year at Collingwood, against West Coast in Perth; Collingwood lost narrowly. Each year since, the biggest game of Buckley's season has been the Anzac Day match, which, as he says, is like a final but isn't one.
Nevertheless, this year's Anzac Day match was one of the best of the season to date. I put it to him that James Hird won the match for Essendon. "Yeah," he said ruefully, looking away and adding half-humorously, "bastard".
If Buckley is, or has been, hard on others, people who know him are quick to point out how hard he is on himself.
For a moment, he doesn't speak, then he offers: "In the last quarter, I was on Hird at the stop plays."
At any time in the history of the game, there are only a handful of great players and at this time, in this town, the talk is basically about just two of them, Buckley and Hird.
I suggest that when games are at the point of being decided, Hird knows how to win them. Again, he agreed. "It's something you learn from being in that position," he said, adding, "but you have to be good enough to execute it."
He doesn't say it, but clearly his team hasn't been in the position nearly as often for him to master that dynamic to the same extent.
In the final term of the Anzac Day match, Hird kicked a goal off one step around his body. He also handballed over a defender's head in such a way that the ball bounced up into the arms of a teammate running towards goal.
Buckley wonders about Hird, where he got his flair from, where or how he learnt the game. He has a photo of a school team he played for in Canberra, the Ainslie under 13s; the kid beside him is snowy- haired James Hird.
What does he remem ber about him? "Nothing," he said flatly, in a way that suggests he has tried.
The match Buckley nominates as his most memorable was one he is confident no one will remember, an Ansett Cup game earlier this year in Western Australia. Collingwood beat West Coast in Perth for the first time in nearly a decade, but more to the point it was, in Buckley's estimation, the game in which Josh Fraser stood up and a couple of other young players showed a bit.
Soon after we met in the football offices at Victoria Park, we ran into Collingwood's talented young ruckman. Buckley almost shouted with joy at the sight of him. "Joshua!" he said, beaming with what almost looked like fatherly pride.
Buckley says he is the most optimistic he has been since he came to Collingwood and, this year, the Pies are a good chance to play in the finals. If they do, I'm going along to see him play, because one thing I know for sure about Nathan Buckley: when he's gone, in the Australian way, we'll say how good he was.
"everyone's a winner hot pies"
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DaicosForever
Mike , i dont think we should de-stabilise the club by posting these rumours which are read by the players. We are all just speculating and dont grasp just how much of an effect they can have on a young kid or on a young side.
Both these players are crucial to us for the remainde rof the year so to give any kind of crdibility to the rumours by allowing them to be posted is insanity.
Louis
Both these players are crucial to us for the remainde rof the year so to give any kind of crdibility to the rumours by allowing them to be posted is insanity.
Louis
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Mike
- Posts: 3137
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- Location: Lilydale, Tas.
- Has liked: 89 times
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Normally I would agree Louis, but not this time.
I actually appreciated the opportunity Kristin provided to comment on the rumour that has had wide circulation on other popular Bulletin Boards.
The rumour, which has, as piesPremiers has pointed out, a vague grounding in an older rumour, is being pushed by one person as part of an anti-Collingwood vendetta. This gives us the opportunity to see it for what it is, deal with it and forget it - make it old news.
I won't give exposure to any post that reeks of an attempt to destabilise the Club , but Kristin had a concern that deserved an answer and as the moderator of a forum for Collingwood fans I won't deny that to any Collingwood supporter.
I actually appreciated the opportunity Kristin provided to comment on the rumour that has had wide circulation on other popular Bulletin Boards.
The rumour, which has, as piesPremiers has pointed out, a vague grounding in an older rumour, is being pushed by one person as part of an anti-Collingwood vendetta. This gives us the opportunity to see it for what it is, deal with it and forget it - make it old news.
I won't give exposure to any post that reeks of an attempt to destabilise the Club , but Kristin had a concern that deserved an answer and as the moderator of a forum for Collingwood fans I won't deny that to any Collingwood supporter.
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JLC
- Posts: 6387
- Joined: Tue May 30, 2000 6:01 pm
- Location: Keysborough still representing Hot Pies
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SINCE WHEN DO WE BELIEVE ESSENDON RUMOURS ???? NEVER EVER LISTEN TO ESSENDON RUMOURS. LETS FACE IT ESSENDON ARE TRYING TO Cause internal bickering amongst us and the club. Lets rise above these low class gutter crawling essendon supporters.
Tarrant is the hottest prospect in the AFL..............as if they would accept Houlihan and Beaumont in return.......lol lol lol lol lol lol
A centre half forward in return for flanker and a backman................lol lol lol lol lol lol
Im sure both Buckley and Tarrant are mature enough to work things out. They dont have to be best friends all they have to be is professional and work towards the common goal of winning football matches.
APA
EVERYONE IS A COLLINGWOOD SUPPORTER ITS JUST THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE IN DENIAL
Tarrant is the hottest prospect in the AFL..............as if they would accept Houlihan and Beaumont in return.......lol lol lol lol lol lol
A centre half forward in return for flanker and a backman................lol lol lol lol lol lol
Im sure both Buckley and Tarrant are mature enough to work things out. They dont have to be best friends all they have to be is professional and work towards the common goal of winning football matches.
APA
EVERYONE IS A COLLINGWOOD SUPPORTER ITS JUST THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE IN DENIAL
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Shaun
In this months issue of Ralph (Also known as 'The Joffa Issue'), there is an interview with Chris tarrant and they ask him about the alleged rift between him and Bucks.
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RALPH: There were reports that there was friction between you and Captain Nathan Buckley.
CHRIS TARRANT: No problems with him. I'm not sure how that rumor started.
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There you have it. Tarrants statement versus a rumor from an opposition club's site. You decide.
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
-General George S. Patton-
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RALPH: There were reports that there was friction between you and Captain Nathan Buckley.
CHRIS TARRANT: No problems with him. I'm not sure how that rumor started.
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There you have it. Tarrants statement versus a rumor from an opposition club's site. You decide.
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
-General George S. Patton-
