The Buck Stops Here: Mature Dons, Lions lacking spirit, what Aleer proves about the game and more

Round 11 has come and gone and the AFL season now heads into the bye rounds.

Former Collingwood coach and superstar Nathan Buckley has put together his takeaways in The Buck Stops Here.

On his mind this week was a rising Giants star, question marks on Brisbane, praise for the Bombers and more.

Read and listen to his thoughts below:

Leek Aleer you star

“We generally look for the bad before we look for the good, but this wasn’t hard to find,” Buckley began on SEN Breakfast.

“Leek Aleer, his last 10 minutes and the scenes after the game I thought was fantastic. He was the star of the show.

“He’s a Kenyan-born, Sudanese heritage, came across as a refugee at the age of six, grew up in the north of Adelaide, played for Central District, pick 15 in the 2021 draft after barracking for Adelaide his whole life, he ended up at GWS.

“Plays four games at the end of 2022, doesn’t play in 2023 and then comes around a second time and just looks like a natural, aggressive intercept marking defender.

“He stood up in the big moments. But the thing I loved about it more than anything was as he was coming off, you’ve got young teenage Bellarine Peninsula kids that are there… they’re asking him for selfies and what I saw there was absolute innocence, how much of a great leveller this game is.

“It's an opportunity to all shapes and sizes, all colours and creeds, I love what football is and that for me was as strong a representation about the best elements of footy.”

Team spirit alive and well for Pies, lacking for Lions

“What is team spirit worth? I suppose there’s a juxtaposition between Collingwood and Brisbane at the moment and the way they’re going about their footy and the spirit that we are seeing.

“I would have thought that Collingwood, despite not getting the win on the weekend, they haven’t lost since Round 2… and they’re showing so much fight and pluck despite who takes the field for them any given week.

“They’re dealing with an injury crisis at the moment, but I thought Joe Richards, Lachie Sullivan and Harvey Harrison… when Collingwood made its surge in the third quarter, those three players were on fire.

“Collingwood had 15 of their starting 22 from the Grand Final, Brisbane had 17 of their starting 22 yesterday. Hawthorn's team doesn’t look a whole lot different to how it’s looked in the last couple of years… but I haven’t seen the same fight in a Brisbane side as I’m seeing in (Collingwood).

“They still have young players coming through… so for me, it must be that the experienced players aren’t bringing it consistently enough.

“I think it’s a real question for Chris Fagan and his leadership to ask and answer.”

Essendon’s maturity standing up

“There’s no stats where they stand up, other than being able to turn up week after week and get the job done.

“They’re 9th for scores from turnover, 9th for scores from stoppage, they’re 14th from scores against from turnover… 7th for scores against from stoppage.

“You look at that and think, 'where are they getting these wins?' For me, they play the moments as well as any and they understand the moments and even though they might not be perfect, they play and empty themselves out as much as any team in the competition at the moment.

“I don’t think the game has ever been more about moments as it is now… I think they’re got a great blend of experience and youth, a great blend of skill and grit and they’ve still got more to come back into the side.

“Their recruiting and trading looks to have done them extremely well and they’re ticking over the wins.”

Cats will still be in the hunt

“They’re in unfamiliar territory, four losses in a row, first time under Chris Scott.

“Some close losses… but Chris Scott isn’t going to lose his nerve, even though he hasn’t been here I’m pretty sure he knows how to galvanise his troops.

“They were a Mitch Duncan spilled chest mark from having a chance to win that game… they played a little bit angry, I haven’t seen that from a Geelong side in a while.

“It’s going to be fascinating to see, they’ve lost their last couple at GMHBA… Geelong has found that their best is good enough and they can be beaten if they don’t play close enough to their best, that’s the type of competition you want.

“But they’re still going to be in the hunt, I think it will be fascinating to see what they do in the next four or five weeks to get themselves up.”

What on earth are we doing?

“We shouldn’t be surprised about holding the ball in particular and the interpretation of how we handle a ball-winner and tackler given the reluctance we’ve had to adjust anything around what prior opportunity is.

“Damien Hardwick and Michael Voss were two coaches who added to the chorus of concern around how that part of the game is adjudicated.

“The way it has transpired, the coaches have adjusted to the way it’s been umpired and I reckon players are coached to fight the tackle because they now know that the tackler can’t take you to ground because he’s not going to risk you hitting your head on the ground, so wait for the best receiver and hold onto the ball.

“The players know if they don’t drop the ball, they’re good, because prior is so far weighted to the ball carrier that there is no parity and they know that the most likely way of a decision against is actually trying to handball or kick.

“So in my view, it all comes back to prior opportunity and the idea that we need to protect the ball winner. We can protect the ball-winner and we do protect the ball-winner, we underestimate how clean players are, how much a ball-winner knows his exits before they win it and how clear their teammates are in space…

“The way we will protect the ball-winner, I believe is to reduce his time to dispose of the footy.

“I've always been an advocate to take prior away. I understand there will be times when you are in the middle of a pack and get tackled when you get the ball… but you need to remove the grey area as much as possible.

“The ball winner and ball carrier has far too many options, far too much time and far too much choice compared to the tackler and that’s to the ball winner’s detriment because that’s when we’re getting injuries and concussions.

“I don’t know where we start to fix this without making a serious change to the spirit of the game and that is that we have to make it easier for the tackler to be rewarded for his efforts.”