Buckley will be an AFL coach in 2010, suggests league chief

The Age

Thursday June 18, 2009

JAKE NIALL

THE AFL hierarchy believes Nathan Buckley will be a senior coach in 2010 and has given little consideration to pursuing the game's most sought coach-in-waiting for the vacant position as coach of the new western Sydney club.AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said yesterday he assumed that Buckley would be a senior coach in 2010, and he had the attributes to be an "outstanding" coach.But while Buckley shapes as an ideal candidate to head up the AFL's 18th team - he could be appointed to the position and still serve an apprenticeship coaching the under-18 team, in the manner of the Gold Coast's Guy McKenna - Demetriou said the AFL had not contemplated that scenario."I think that Nathan Buckley has all the makings of an outstanding senior coach," said Demetriou, who is heavily involved in the formation of the west Sydney club, which is slated to enter the competition in 2012 - a time frame that would give an inexperienced coach, such as Buckley, the opportunity to do a two-year apprenticeship with the club."My assumption is that he will be well sought-after next for (coaching positions) . . . and I wish him well and I think he'll be very good at it." Asked specifically about whether Buckley could be a candidate to coach west Sydney, serving an apprenticeship coaching the junior team before it entered the competition, Demetriou said: "It's something we haven't even contemplated. My assumption is that he'll be coaching next year."While Buckley has been discussed as a prospective coach of four clubs - North Melbourne, which is believed to be keen to sign him, Richmond, Port Adelaide and his old club Collingwood - the possibility of west Sydney has been ignored, despite his strong relationship with the AFL as an assistant coach of the Australian Institute of Sport-AFL academy, a position that Michael Voss also held before he was offered the Gold Coast job.Voss declined the AFL-sanctioned offer to coach the Gold Coast on the grounds that it gave him only a three-year deal, which would expire after his first year as coach of the team.The position was taken by McKenna, who has a two-year contract and no formal guarantee of the AFL job, though it is widely assumed that he will be the foundation coach.Buckley is travelling in the US with the west Sydney club's first appointment, high-performance manager, Alan McConnell, and with the league's head of game development, David Matthews.The AFL party is visiting college football powerhouse Notre Dame and meeting with senior officials of America's most famed college, with Buckley using the trip to further his coaching education.The west Sydney club is not considered to be as advanced as the Gold Coast was at the corresponding time last year, though the AFL will soon announce the composition of the advisory board that will help form the new club.

© 2009 The Age

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