Coll always beat geel, this year included.
It's just such an even year. Pies are a breath away from being 9-3 or 8-4 and there would be no discussion about bucks. They are clearly on the right track
It could be argued that the Pies have been the most consistently competitive team in the league this year, given that we've been level or leading at some point after half time in all but one game (against Carlton), and have an average losing margin of just 13.71 points.
Yeah, you can say that almost isn't good enough, "he's had enough time", etc., but it would feel extremely harsh to be making a big show of sacking Buckley at any stage of this season. At the very least he'll see out the year, and either walk or not be renewed.
Given the effort and intensity that he has the players playing with, if his heart is still in it at the end of the year, I would be tempted to give Buckley a two year extension, to allow him the opportunity to get some reward for effort with this group of players. As we've seen, it would only take a few extra things going the Pies way here or there for them to have had one of the better win-loss ratios to this point of the season.
The team lacks polish, but the effort is unquestionably there, and (despite the "shit bloke" narrative that some like to push) Buckley has certainly never "lost the players". They play hard, as a team, and I think that effort deserves to and will be rewarded with a finals berth sooner rather than later, perhaps even still this year.