Buckley reflects on Collingwood coaching debut and his early selection regret

Nathan Buckley has taken a look back in his first game in charge of Collingwood.

Buckley took over from Mick Malthouse at the end of the 2011 season, with his first game at the helm coming in a 115-137 loss to Hawthorn in Round 1 of 2012.

The Collingwood great looked back at the game due to being in a similar situation as Dean Cox who lost his first game in charge of Sydney after taking over a team that made a Grand Final the year before.

Having been in Cox’s position, Buckley urged the Swans coach to quarantine himself and not take in too much of the negative press about his side’s result given Sydney were in the game all the way until the final stages of the last quarter.

While that was a lesson that Buckley eventually learned throughout his coaching career, he says that one lesson he was taught immediately after his coaching debut was to never go too young at selection as the Magpies picked Jackson Paine, Paul Seedsman and Peter Yagmoor on debut as well as Lachie Keeffe, Luke Rounds and Ben Sinclair who had all played six or fewer games.

“I think we played something like three first gamers and another three players that hadn't played 10 games yet,” Buckley told SEN's Whateley.

“That was a squad that had lost the Grand Final in 2011. They had an amazing year and before sort of tripping up a couple of weeks before the end of the home and away campaign, they were pretty much unbeatable (in 2011) and were winning games off 20 minutes of footy.

“They were also premiers the year before, so the top end of that group was quite experienced.

“But, for whatever reason, whether it was player availability or whether it was pre-season injuries, we six players with 10 games or under … and we were playing Hawthorn, we were not playing mugs.”

The mistake Buckley made by going too young in that game was picking the fittest team he could find to keep up with the pace of a Round 1 game, which led to picking players before they were truly ready for the top level.

He particularly regretted picking Peter Yagmoor – who ended up with two career AFL games to his name – as he thinks the then 18-year-old never really recovered from being thrown in the deep end on debut.

“We picked the fittest team that we could find because they're always high-intensity games and the fittest happened to be some of the younger brigade,” Buckley said.

“Some of the more mature guys may not have been available. But in retrospect, six was too many, maybe three was right.

“If you've got three (young players), you put three more underdone sort of 70-80 game players with them that have got a little more wherewithal.

“I remember Peter Yagmoor … even though his pre-season was great, we played him before he was ready. He compounded in that game, and I don't think he ever recovered.

“This is the responsibility in coaching and development. You can put players in a position that they're not necessarily ready for, and he played well through the pre-season, but with the extra intensity, he found it really difficult.

“It took him a while to recover from that.”

Buckley’s Magpies rebounded in Round 2 with a win against Richmond and while they’d lose in Round 3, they’d go on to win their next 10 games in a row thereafter and qualify for a Preliminary Final in his first year in charge.