- Nathan Buckley opens up about his “disgraceful” behavior
- The Collingwood legend was a no-nonsense leader throughout his career.
- He now admits that he approached the game in the wrong way
Nathan Buckley has revealed his regret over the “disgraceful” treatment he meted out to those around him during the height of his AFL playing career.
Buckley, now 52, made a heartbreaking confession on The Imperfects podcast on Wednesday as he reflected on life as a Collingwood hard-nosed midfielder and club captain.
He played 280 games for the Pies, during which time he ruled the team with an iron fist both on and off the field.
But, 17 years after retiring from football, the Fox Sports pundit says there was an underlying layer of insecurity he kept hidden from his teammates.
“The boy who had tears running down his cheeks was grateful that it rained periodically, because he never wanted to show weakness, he never wanted to show vulnerability,” Buckley said on the podcast.
“And I guess if people knew, they’d be like, ‘Huh, what a phenomenon.'”
Buckley said he rarely asked for help and that it often left him isolated, and that his attitude on and off the court was “embarrassing”.
“It was partly a protection mechanism,” he said.
Nathan Buckley reflects on his ’embarrassing’ behaviour at the height of his career
The Collingwood legend said his relentless leadership was a stance he regrets.
The football champion has reflected on his former self in a new podcast released on Wednesday.
‘I didn’t see it as a struggle. And there were coping mechanisms: drinking a lot on the weekend, because if I couldn’t control everything, then I wanted to forget about it, so I got into that cycle: ‘I want to control everything, but then I don’t want to control anything.’
“There were a lot of ineffective and disruptive behaviors. Probably the way others viewed you, more than anything. But there were also a lot of coping and numbing strategies to try to manage that intensity of performance.”
“I had coaches who continually tried to have this conversation with me,” he continued.
‘What remained constant was my attitude; the attitude on the pitch towards my teammates. And my very visible disappointment, my virulence, whatever you want to call it.
‘My body language was terrible in those early stages and it was disrespectful to myself, to my teammates, to the team, to the club, to the AFL, to the position and to the benefit I had from running in the middle of the MCG.
“Behaving the way I did was embarrassing, really, when I step back.
“I have never specifically expressed that.”
Since retiring from football, Buckley coached Collingwood for 218 games, before seamlessly transitioning to commentating on Fox Footy.