Why Nathan Buckley should hold off on a return to coaching

The coaching choice that seems to have been presented to Nathan Buckley is one of those rare occasions when a bird in the hand might not be worth more than two in the bush.

On the face of it, the former Collingwood coach is in the frame for two vacant senior coaching positions. The immediate choice lies in the prospect of the troubled Melbourne Football Club and further afield lies Tasmania, whose CEO Brendon Gale wants the coach appointed by July next year.

Tasmania’s future is not exactly smooth sailing. The government still looks shaky despite a positive election result in terms of stadium support and should Labor do a deal with the anti-stadium Greens – unlikely but possible – that would prove a significant setback.

Gale and his chairman Grant O’Brien have found themselves lobbyists as much as football administrators but remain wedded to the 2028 launch of the Devils. A meeting with AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon and commission chairman Richard Goyder this week did nothing to dispel that view.

The team looks likely to play 10 games in the VFL in 2026 and the most pressing and imminent football appointment looms as the head of development.

Placing some ugly stadium politics aside, the view of most club presidents is that Tasmania cannot be denied a team now. On the negative side, the AFL Commission on Friday delayed the final call on draft and list concessions for the Devils until the end of September. But on the positive, those concessions will far outweigh what was afforded the Gold Coast and even GWS back in 2010 and 2011.

Say what you like about the uncertainty over the Devils, you cannot deny the proven calibre of the club’s still-skeleton leadership under Gale and O’Brien and a board being led in football terms by the strategic passion of Alastair Lynch. Their home base in Kingston has not yet been built but has been financially guaranteed and fully approved.

The same cannot be said for Melbourne, which on Monday night sacked premiership coach Simon Goodwin before the end of the season, just as they did the legendary Norm Smith 60 years earlier. The club’s potential future home at Caulfield remains unclear with significant roadblocks still in place.

Goodwin and Buckley are friends, which would not preclude the latter accepting the job should the offer present itself. But equally the red flag of Casey – a base Goodwin was assured several years ago would be well gone as Melbourne’s key training facility by now – looms as an obstacle in the Demons’ bid to become a destination club.

The leadership at the Demons looks uncertain, although Steven Smith is now back in the country and plans to take over as president before the end of the year. Smith will oversee yet another review – hopefully more dynamic and independent than the one 12 months ago – of the football operation post-season and help put together a selection panel to find Melbourne’s next coach.

Goodwin will not be the only high-profile departure from their football department. Paul Guerra, with no football experience, finally takes over as CEO next month.

Buckley has not coached since his gentlemanly ousting from Collingwood midway through 2021. Not only has he been prepared to cautiously show an interest in both the Tasmanian job and the Melbourne job but his thoughtful media performances since leaving the Magpies suggest he remains a coach at heart.

Former teammates, off-field colleagues and players coached by Buckley confirm he has picked their brains for feedback in his determination to learn from mistakes made in the past. Mitigating his early struggles at the Magpies are the clumsy coaching handover with Mick Malthouse, which left Buckley with a divided playing group and the fact of his relative inexperience, which would not be tolerated now.

Still Buckley, who was also navigating personal issues now resolved, came so close to a premiership. His unwavering professional standards appeal to the Devils brains trust, as does his apparent commitment to the challenge and historic nature of the potential role.

Buckley no longer has any family ties to Tasmania but the prospect of throwing himself into a new and still largely unclear football landscape has not seemed a deterrent for the Collingwood champion, who spent his football-obsessed youth moving around the country.

Tasmania look certain to be granted a raft of first-round draft picks at the end of 2027 – the national draft will be held in Tasmania – including picks one, three, five, seven, nine, 11 and 13 along with the 10 best 17-year-olds in Australia, who can be taken over the first two years of the team’s life. They will also be able to hand out sign-on bonuses totalling an estimated $1 million for proven stars. Although the Devils will be forced to trade some high picks, they get to keep pick No.1 and will have access to father-sons from their home state and academy players.

Two of those academy stars loom as Sam Husband and Jack Gulliver, who were both named in the 2025 All-Australian under-16 team this week, Gulliver as captain. The Tasmania under-16s won their B-division title last week at the national championships. Draft concessions continue over 2029 and 2030, with the competition determined to learn from the mistakes of the past.

None of the above should suggest that Buckley at 53 is a shoo-in for either the Melbourne or Tasmania jobs. But he is a leading candidate for both and would seem to be facing a choice between returning in 2026 to the career he seemed wired for post his playing retirement or waiting until 2028.

The immediate Melbourne option would have him looking to oversee a cultural rebuild of a team that lost its way on and off the field after the 2021 flag while also rebuilding on the run in the face of a relatively dour draft laden with obstacles. And still without a proper home – a far cry from Collingwood’s AIA Vitality Centre at Olympic Park.

Tasmania boasts other uncertainties but comes equipped with the prospect of the best head start of any fledgling team in the game’s history, not to mention the growing good will of the competition. It seems the perfect job for the Port Adelaide Magpie-turned-Brisbane Bear-turned Collingwood captain and coach. And Buckley would have from the second half of next year to phase out of his current media roles into wooing and moulding key pillars of the inaugural Tasmanian team.

Perhaps Buckley, the game’s most consistently brilliant and driven midfielder for a decade, is the person to unite a football state mistreated for too long by the national game. Weighing up the two options, the Devils seem well worth the wait.

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