Nathan Buckley Breakfast

The East Fremantle Leadership Group and Emerging Leaders attended a breakfast talk by Nathan Buckley on Friday 12th July. Vice-Captain Cam Eardley wrote about the experience:

On a chilly Friday morning, Head Coach Bill Monaghan, Football Manager Brad Dodd and 6 Senior players were fortunate enough to attend a breakfast with Nathan Buckley at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in the City. 

It was an excellent experience and gave a great insight into Buckley’s career, both as a player and as a coach. 

From the players perspective, it was particularly interesting listening to Nathan discussing Collingwood’s transition during the 2015, 16, 17 and 18 seasons. It was re-affirming to hear that the club didn’t actually change that much between the 2017 and 2018 seasons and that many of the changes, and work, had been put in the years before. The results and success take time to come into fruition. Collingwood only began to reap the rewards of their hard work, effort and buy-in a year or two down the track.

I feel we are in a similar position now. We have built the foundations and we must continue to live by our core values. We have played some good football in 2019 and shown glimpses of our capabilities, so listening to Buckley just solidified our belief that we can produce football at a high standard on a regular basis. 

Nathan also spoke about his relationship with his players and the importance of building a united and inclusive culture within the club. Again, it reinforces that they work we’ve been doing in this space over the last 9 months. It’s an exciting time at the club and we’re really looking forward to working hard and finishing the season off on a positive note. 

We were all grateful for the opportunity to listen to such an accomplished player/coach speak honestly and we all took something out of it. Our task is to now take the key messages back to the group and share our experience with them, driving our club to higher standards.