A handful of injury niggles to senior players have opened the door for several younger players who have impressed the club hierarchy this summer.
Players such as Jackson Paine, Jarrod Witts and Peter Yagmoor are all in line for an early opportunity against the Western Bulldogs and Greater Western Sydney in Blacktown, with Buckley keen to see the new players fill important roles in the senior team.
“There’ll be plenty,” Buckley announced on Wednesday.
“Most of our rookies will be in the squad (as well as) second to third year players. I think we’ve got about 10-12 third year players or less that will be in the squad and have the opportunity to represent the club for their first or one of their first handful of times.
“There’ll be four or five guys who’ll be putting on their guernseys for the first time.”
The absence of some key leaders means that the next generation will be charged with the responsibility of stepping up and making names for themselves as leaders of the future.
Click here to watch Buckley's press conference on CTV's Official YouTube Channel.
“We’ll see a lot of youth. There will be a lot of opportunity for blokes to build on their leadership opportunities as well. We’ll have a few leaders out and young players to be able to play their role within our structure. We expect to perform well.”
One of those experienced leaders to miss will be Harry O’Brien. The defender split his hand open in a freak accident at home, meaning he will miss Saturday’s round robin.
“He just put his hand through a pane of class at home. Just can’t take a trick at the moment. Harry’s got a few stitches in his little finger. He’ll miss this week and be right for NAB round two.
“It was just a freak accident. He put the hand through it and got a bit of a cut in there. He’s got some stitches. It’s just going to be a week and he’ll be all right.”
As winners of last year’s NAB Cup, interest surrounds Collingwood’s approach to claiming back-to-back titles in 2012, but Buckley is adamant that the Magpies will be entering every match with the intention of winning.
“We want to win every game we play. No matter who takes the field for Collingwood expect that they fulfil the roles that they’re asked to play and that we play the style that we want to play and that would fulfil our opportunities to play winning footy,” Buckley told the media after a training session at Gosch’s Paddock on Wednesday.
“We haven’t discussed if we want to win the NAB Cup or not. We want to perform well this week and we’ll see what happens from there.”
Buckley has coached the senior team twice to date (in a practice match against Adelaide in 2010 and in the first round of the NAB Cup last year) but is excited about the opportunity to be in charge of the reigns in his own right.
“I’m looking forward to it. We’ve gone through a heavy batch of training pre-Christmas and put in a good month post Christmas and they’re just looking forward to testing themselves against another opposition so Western Bulldogs and GWS provide that.
“For me, it’s a chance to dip the toe in the water and the rest of our coaching staff to make sure that our systems are in place and ready to go in round one.”
