Simon Buckley

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I've always liked him as a player...from right back to his Melbourne days.

I reckon he needs to step up this year. He isn't top 22 material, but we need depth with so many guys retiring last year. He is a guy with a few years in the system with AFL experience, so we need a few of the 2nd tier players to press for selection.

The brilliance of last year was that no one in our top 22 felt safe. We don't have the same depth this year in terms of senior players...but we have a stack of kids who look ready to go. So we also need guys like Buckley, Davis, Goldsack and Wood to keep the pressure on.
 

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I thought he was good in the pre-season and reckon he's been pretty good the last 2 weeks as well. However, I think he'll be forced out when Toovs and Johnno come back. He's a very good depth player though.
 
Really grown to like this guy, and I reckon mick loves proving players like this (and Leroy, Tooves, etc) who have been maligned in the past at our club or other clubs can actually play and hold a spot in our side. Buckley 2011 = Tooves 2009 = Leroy 2010 ?
 
He has played well, but I'm still a little worried about him under pressure, as a few times today he made the wrong choices at critical times.

He is improving though, definitely better then last year, and is now in our best 25-28 players, and with the way the sub rule is increasing the injury rate, that almost guarantees you a game most weeks if you are fit.

His obvious strength is his kicking ability, he just needs to back himself a little more sometimes and get it inside 50 to one on one contests a little quicker.
 
He's a work in progress who has shown some excellent signs but occasionally reverts to bad habits.
That said we helped sponsor him last year so he's cool.:thumbsu::thumbsu::D
 
I still pretty much stand by my comments, though I've relaxed them slightly. He still butchers the ball due to poor decision making (its going to take more than a few solid games to convince me otherwise) and when coming out of defence that can kill you, but not viewing him as ok depth was an error on my part. He's probably forced his way up to the 23-25 bracket in my mind and coming into the season I'd have had him just about dead last of our players with senior experience so about 30.

The one thing that I probably didn't take into account was his effectiveness as a role player. He has the height to cover most small-medium forwards in the air and the speed to go with them on the ground. We've had problems with small forwards over the years and apart from his game against Lindsay Thomas he's kept his man on a very tight leash.

He isn't and on the balance of probabilities won't ever be a weapon for us, because of his poor decision making, and he'll most likely be squeezed out of the team once Johnno and Tooves are fit. But he does provide depth, which at the start of the year is the best we could have hoped for.
 
I think he has been excellent. People who seem to want to write him off, especially for poor decision making, should have a look at the other players in our back 6 first. I love Reid, but he makes some very elementary errors sometimes - like a 20 metre spot kick to Sidebottom that missed the target by about 10 metres - goal.

Or the decisions of Maxwell in general - he can be a very stupid footballer at times. Really annoyed me today when he doubled back, got caught, and then had a go at Beams for being out of position. He may be right, but surely a clearing kick up the line is better than holding the ball 40 metres out? No doubting his leadership and courage, and we wouldn't be premiers but for him, but a very poor decision maker at times.

Buckley is no worse than some of those players with his disposal/ decision making.
 
Jonno_ said:
I think he has been excellent. People who seem to want to write him off, especially for poor decision making, should have a look at the other players in our back 6 first. I love Reid, but he makes some very elementary errors sometimes - like a 20 metre spot kick to Sidebottom that missed the target by about 10 metres - goal.

Or the decisions of Maxwell in general - he can be a very stupid footballer at times. Really annoyed me today when he doubled back, got caught, and then had a go at Beams for being out of position. He may be right, but surely a clearing kick up the line is better than holding the ball 40 metres out? No doubting his leadership and courage, and we wouldn't be premiers but for him, but a very poor decision maker at times.

Buckley is no worse than some of those players with his disposal/ decision making.
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That's the point though we already have quite a few players, that are better than Buckley and more solidified in the team, who at times make poor decisions coming out of defence. Adding another into the mix doesn't help.
 
He's doing enough to hold the spot and that forces competition which is great.

I thought the main problem the whole game was not backing ourselves, playing a bit quietly and timidly apart from maybe Leon Davis with some aggressive runs at the back.

It was great when the side found that confidence, and Buckley with his goal was a key part of all that.

I reckon for players who aren't that good decision-wise, generally the best thing to do is make a strong decision with forward movement.

Davis sometimes struggles in defence, but he is at his best hitting the ball with pace and smashing it forward. At the very least if you hit the boundary line ala Toovey and turn it over, you can reset the defence for the next ball coming in.

Worst is doing the Maxwell error of changing your mind midstream and getting caught. Him and O'Brien get done a fair bit for this, but you wouldn't change their natural games because they are generally damaging when they win the contested ball.

Liking Buckley as probably my 25th best player at Collingwood, and another diamond in the rough for the recruiting team. Melbourne would love him back now.
 
I think he was great against Adelaide.
atm I think he would be very well suited to being our sub if he is forced out of the starting side. Think about it - he can play back, kick goals forward, play midfield, he's hard at the ball and has a good clearance kick and good run.
Have him as a sub next week, bring him on in Q3 n watch him blow the competition away!
 

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Is this a joke about his woeful disposal? Had one ordinary game which was his first where his disposal efficiency was 36%, and since then his DE has been in the stratosphere: 89, 77, 81 and 94.

People though who look out for the 10-20% wrong will always find it, and let you know.
 
Playing very well thus far, and love his disposal. Posters that have been giving him a hard time after his first game for the pies well why dont you guys get stuck into swan for yesterdays efforts? this is what bugs me about collingwood supporters, they find a few whipping boys and they will whip them for every bad kick they do at collingwood!!!
 
His disposal has been good. Although he needs to learn to go back far enough behind the mark when he gets held up. He gets too close and tends to kick pressured up and unders. Which is totally unecessary. I guess it is a positive in away as it shows an eagerness to move the ball on quickly but he should still iron this out.
 
he is clearly being used as the zone breaker along with reid with his penetrating kicking, he has been doing ok still has mental lapses [ like allowing selwood to handpass to the goal square for a goal ] but overall deserves his spot. put it this way he cant be any worse than harry o in a one on one contest so if he provides drive and frees up other players he plays
 
A definite axe murderer and serial killer who needs to be delisted at the end of the year. He has invented new ways of butchering the ball. We need to draw a line in the sand and send him off like we did Toovey and Leroy.
 
Melbourne could seriously use him right now - Grimes and then Tapscott going down robs them of almost all of their run from the backline, and you have to think that he was at least worth keeping around as a bit of injury cover.

If he's handy depth for us, he'd be more than handy depth with a good shot at being in the best 22 at Melbourne.
 
He is just finding his feet and confidence. Just like harry did, just like heater did, just like possum did, just like reid did. He will be a good line breaker by years end!!!!!!!!:thumbsu: His kicking skills are better than alot give credit for.
 
Old Spice said:
Is this a joke about his woeful disposal? Had one ordinary game which was his first where his disposal efficiency was 36%, and since then his DE has been in the stratosphere: 89, 77, 81 and 94.

People though who look out for the 10-20% wrong will always find it, and let you know.
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DE is a fairly horrible stat. You will find players who spend a whole game kicking it on forwards heads or feets will get decent DE% regularly.

With that said his kicking has been much better. The thing that people have to realise is whilst he does make some mistakes with his decision making on a number of occasions his huge (possibly ambitious) kicking has resulted in goals that he has set up.

There are a number of good players to come back into the side. The most important in this case is Ben Johnson. I still think Buckley is playing good enough football to hold his spot. I also think it's in our best interest to let him grow in confidence while he is playing good footy. If Johnno is fit maybe we rest Toovs for another week.
 
Old Spice said:
Is this a joke about his woeful disposal? Had one ordinary game which was his first where his disposal efficiency was 36%, and since then his DE has been in the stratosphere: 89, 77, 81 and 94.

People though who look out for the 10-20% wrong will always find it, and let you know.
Click to expand...

Buckley is currently running at 75% DE over the course of the season, which one might think doesn't sound too bad, but maybe we should compare him to some other players who you wouldn't call either good decision makers or particularly good disposers of the ball (they do however all play in the same area of the ground).

Raphael Clarke 89%
Dylan Grimes 85%
Zac Dawson 85%
Tom Lonergan 85%
Luke McGuane 82%
Nathan Grima 82%
Daniel Merrett 81%
Matthew Warnock 81%
and the big one Karmichael Hunt 79%.

I'd argue that Buckley has ten times the skill of all of those players (he can be a beautiful long kick at times, his goals against Port and Essendon in the NAB cup are examples) yet he has a worse DE than all of them.

Yes he's improved in quite a number of areas but can we just hold off the love in until after we've seen 8 weeks of good footy from him rather than 3. After that time if he's still playing the type of footy he is atm then no-one would have a reason not to jump on board!!
 

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Simon Buckley

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