Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nBuckley, 53, coached Collingwood between 2012 and 2021, including a grand final berth in 2018 and five finals appearances. <\/p>\n
At the outset of Fox Footy\u2019s On the Couch on Monday night, asked point-blank by Brisbane Lions legend Jonathan Brown if he wanted to coach next year, Buckley said: \u201cI don\u2019t know if I do or not. And I think I\u2019ve been pretty transparent and clear with that. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a spot available now, and this is the first time that I\u2019ve actually wanted to go further down the track to find out what that challenge would be, and whether it would fit for where I\u2019m at in my life, as well. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to explore it a little bit harder this time around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buckley, who has now been out of coaching for almost four years, had a career 117-99-2 record with the Magpies after a 28-game, Brownlow Medal-winning playing career. <\/p>\n
He was prompted on what that \u201cexploration\u201d looks like. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more to understand Melbourne\u2019s challenge, and where they think they\u2019re at, where they think they need to go forward. But before we get to all of this, I am but one of many candidates that will be really good options for Melbourne going forward,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd they\u2019ll go through their process, and they\u2019ll choose the person that they think is best-placed to take them forward, whether that\u2019s for the next three years, five years, whether they\u2019re looking for 10 years. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the end, that\u2019s their remit, to work that out. There\u2019s multiple good options, there\u2019s multiple good decisions. It\u2019s not just one person, so I think that\u2019s got to be really clear up front.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buckley acknowledged \u201cit could be\u201d a reality that senior coaching is ultimately done for him, despite externally shaping as a frontrunner in Melbourne\u2019s process. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m stepping into a space, now, that I haven\u2019t at this point. So, I\u2019m just taking the next steps to explore it for myself, and obviously through the lens of one club at the moment,\u201d he continued. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have kicked around with Tassie as well, to have a look at that. But that\u2019s been dormant for probably six months. So, that\u2019s as open as I can be about it. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to be asked as I go along, and (I\u2019ll) have a microphone in front of me every second day, but I\u2019m not going to be giving blow-by-blows (updates) on Melbourne\u2019s process on their system, on where we\u2019re at in terms of our communication. <\/p>\n
\u201cI could think one thing this evening and think something different tomorrow evening. So, it wouldn\u2019t be fair on me or them to try and do a blow-by-blow, because it will ebb and flow until either they or I or any other candidate gets to a final position.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the Couch: Jonathan Brown asks Nathan Buckley about his coaching aspirations.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
Brown proposed the idea that the \u201cattractiveness\u201d of the Demons\u2019 win-now list might play a hand in Buckley\u2019s desire to partake in their process. <\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, you\u2019re really governed by the list that you have at hand,\u201d Brown posed, to which Buckley replied: \u201cYes and no.\u201d <\/p>\n
Brown suggested that perhaps the state of West Coast\u2019s list last year played a key hand in Buckley\u2019s unwillingness to participate in the process that ultimately ended with Andrew McQualter winning the senior coach role. <\/p>\n
\u201cWas that because I didn\u2019t like West Coast, or was it because I wasn\u2019t ready?\u201d Buckley answered. <\/p>\n
\u201cI took a call from Don Pyke (Eagles chief executive), but I said to him \u2018I\u2019m not in the space to consider that\u2019, and I think I\u2019m in a space to consider it now. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at the list, but then you\u2019ve got to consider what\u2019s the state of your TPP (total player payments). I\u2019ve been in a position where the TPP is not in a great state. Maybe it\u2019s not a position I want to step into in that regard \u2014 I don\u2019t know that yet. <\/p>\n
\u201cThen the other is where do you train? What\u2019s the structure of your leadership? Because at the moment, it\u2019s still quite transient. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are your plans going forward in terms of facilities and where you want to be? And where do you think you sit? When do you want to contend? I don\u2019t have any answers to any of those questions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley remains uncertain about his aspirations to return to coaching but says \u201cthis is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[1146,638,8406,64,63,55,639,48871,20536,40826,30307,13213,32923,48870,3231,30404,19052,7804,26511,48874,11315,22401,48873,48872,48868,8014,85,48869,7067],"class_list":{"0":"post-60132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-adam-simpson","9":"tag-afl","10":"tag-andrew-mcqualter","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-australian-football-league","14":"tag-australianfootballleague","15":"tag-coaching-aspirations","16":"tag-coaching-job","17":"tag-coaching-landscape","18":"tag-don-pyke","19":"tag-finals-series","20":"tag-grand-final-appearance","21":"tag-initially-fancied-premiership-mentors","22":"tag-jack-jovanovski","23":"tag-john-longmire","24":"tag-jonathan-brown","25":"tag-melbourne-demons","26":"tag-nathan-buckley","27":"tag-player-payments","28":"tag-playing-career","29":"tag-senior-coach","30":"tag-senior-coach-job","31":"tag-senior-coach-role","32":"tag-senior-coaching","33":"tag-simon-goodwin","34":"tag-sports","35":"tag-tomorrow-evening","36":"tag-west-coast-eagles"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}