Is Pendlebury as good as Buckley?

[neilk]

Re: Pendles good as Bucks?

50 metre pin point passes from bucks were sublime. I havent even witnessed another player in the afl kick it as good as bucks let alone a pies player.

Pendles is improving at a dramatic rate, to think hes only 22 or 23, hes only going to be coming into his prime in a few years. Swan and pendles will be remember as greats of the club for sure.

Only if they're both still at Collingwood next year and beyond!?

 

[Old Spice]

The two families must breed to create the ultimate footballer - Scothan Bucklebury.

 

[Ed D]

Pendles and Buckley are/were very different players so it's hard to compare them, especially when one is retired and the other is at the start of their career. Pendles would have to continue what he's doing for another 8-10 years to match Buckley IMO, but even still Buckley had better skills.

 

[Kirby]

Pendles and Buckley are/were very different players so it's hard to compare them, especially when one is retired and the other is at the start of their career. Pendles would have to continue what he's doing for another 8-10 years to match Buckley IMO, but even still Buckley had better skills.

By foot yes, by hand no.

 

[surfer1]

Re: Pendles good as Bucks?

Nope, simple as that.

enough said

 

[robertg22]

Re: Pendles good as Bucks?

You'd have to say that the stats are stacked remarkably in Pendles' favour:

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/...d1=1611&tid2=5&pid2=1656&type=A&fid1=O&fid2=O

 

[mdc]

By foot yes, by hand no.

I think a few of Buckley's other skills were just overshadowed by his kicking. By the 2000's he had developed a beast of a handball, I still recall some crisp 30-35m handpasses hitting guys on the tit. Didn't have anything like Pendles' vision by hand, but in terms of simple execution I'd pick Buckley, especially for distances 15m+.

Same goes for his tackling: was an incredibly good tackler later in his career, yet almost no-one remembers.

 

[Kirby]

^ I was factoring the vision into it which is an important part of the skill.

I agree with you on the execution.

 

[mdc]

^ I was factoring the vision into it which is an important part of the skill.

Yeah, no argument from me, it just irks me that Buckley is remembered as some sort of winger with a silky kick, rather than the all round beast that he was. Wasn't intimating that this is what you meant, just thought I'd take the opportunity to vent a bit.

What I wouldn't give to have that man back in at the centre bounce. Possibly even both Swan and Pendlebury.

 

[Knightmare]

Not as good as Buckley.
Swan is making up ground, but still has a fair way to go.
Pendlebury we'll see at the end of his career still very young. Looks likely he will come close if he can captain Collingwood and be involved in a couple of flags.

 

[DWil6]

I love Pendles. Star. And what foresight by Hine. Look at what Thomas is doing to teams regularly also. Great draft. Awesome player, future captain.

Buckley.

 

[Football God]

Buckley is the clubs greatest player in it's history so no chance.

 

[pauly_moss]

Swan is very underated by most. Not only has he won 3 copelands in a row but 1 in a premiership year and the other 2 won when we made the prelim finals. This is also when there are 16 teams in the comp not just 10 or 12. He is one of the all time greats.

Swans greatness attributes....

Hard runner that constantly finds space in packs and out in open

Exceptional reader of the play in ruck contests and of opposition players

Excellent contested mark rarely beaten

Good kick for goal and ability of scoring on a regular basis.

Does he have the kicking ability of Buckley? No
However he does have other attributes that are better then Nathan Buckley.

I think Buckley still will be the number 1 of all time but Swan is mounting a case to be considered and his career is not over yet.... what if he wins it again and we go back to back??

 

[mattys123]

I think Buckley still will be the number 1 of all time but Swan is mounting a case to be considered and his career is not over yet.... what if he wins it again and we go back to back??

I think this is where the case for Swan gets interesting.

So far he has 3 Copelands (all in a row), he has one premiership medal and an MVP award, and has broken the record for most possessions ever in an AFL season, twice I believe.

Yet, if we go back to back, and the great Dane goes for the quaddie in the Copeland, and back to back in premiership years, surely his rating in terms of Collingwood "greats" would have to be increased.

As great as Bucks was, and by no means was it his fault that he didn't win a flag, it is still the one thing missing from his resume that all our other greats (bar Len Thompson) have on their list of achievements.

Interesting debate, if Swan goes back to back in the Copeland in premiership years, I'd rate him very close to Bucks, although Swanny may have a little more competition this year from the likes of Pendles, Thomas, Shaw and a smoky in Ben Reid.

 

[pauly_moss]

Re: Pendles good as Bucks?

You'd have to say that the stats are stacked remarkably in Pendles' favour:

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/...d1=1611&tid2=5&pid2=1656&type=A&fid1=O&fid2=O

Now I know this was a joke but have a look at Pendles at same stage compared to the great midfielders of today......

Swan, Ablett, Hayes, Black, Bartel

his numbers do stack up very well its quite scary actually how good they are for how early he is in his career

 

[mdc]

I think Buckley still will be the number 1 of all time but Swan is mounting a case to be considered and his career is not over yet.... what if he wins it again and we go back to back??

Swan could win 7 Copelands, and we could win 4 premierships...and he still won't be anywhere near as good a player as Buckley.

Of all his attributes that you've named, Buckley was as good or better at everything bar overhead marking. I'd add Swan's a slightly better 1-on-1 player with the ball on the ground too. But Buckley did so many other things better than Swan from kicking to handpassing to vision to leadership to defensive work to versatility..the list just goes on. He also managed to set the AFL record for clearances in 2003 despite having to rove to Josh Fraser, which is just mindboggling.

I think Swan's the 2nd-best mid in the league going into this season behind Ablett, but the quality of mids at the very top is simply not what it was when Buckley, Hird & co. were at their peak.

 

[Knightmare]

The difference between Buckley and his modern counterparts is that he played in a generally struggling team.

Pendlebury/Swan/Didak/Thomas are all playing with eachother.

All the latter are premiership players, which will at the end of the day be the difference, but you pick one. And Buckley is the choice.

By hand or foot would take Buckley. 60m kick. Better set shot + on the run. Most powerful. Can take the game over.

Doesn't get the same touches as a Swan or Pendlebury, but had to win his own ball because of little support + did so in a time where there were generally less posessions per game.

But all the players in question will all have very good careers. Hopefully the fantastic four get to play in multiple premiership together. Which is possibly the most important measure of greatness and will lift the status of these players to very close to Buckley.

 

[pauly_moss]

He also managed to set the AFL record for clearances in 2003 despite having to rove to Josh Fraser, which is just mindboggling.

In fairness to Swanny here he also had had this his whole career bar last year.

Buckley also was as good as he was over a longer sustained period of his career. However Swan's isn't over yet.

The attributes for Swan are what I think he is better then Buckley in most cases was however in stating that Bucks has so many as well.

Kicking penetration both distance and speed that he could hit a target. In some cases his kicks were just to hot for forwards because they came so fast like daisy cutters simply an amazing kick.

Tackling he was so strong. He really made the opposition hurt.

Leadership, good leader on the field and off it.

At the end of the day they are both stars no matter how you look at it.

 

[mdc]

Doesn't get the same touches as a Swan or Pendlebury, but had to win his own ball because of little support + did so in a time where there were generally less posessions per game.

Actually, at his peak he got more of the ball than Pendlebury and would only have been marginally behind Swan. And when we adjust for possessions per game, Buckley's best possession rate is significantly better than Swan's, and in fact he's only behind Robert Harvey's best seasons in terms of finding the ball.

I made a longish post regarding possession rates here a while back if you or anyone else is interested.

 

[rose jam]

Buckley is the greatest Collingwood player we will all see in our life time. As much as I love the current group none of them are up at Buckley's level.
Bucks became sort of limitless. A few AFL players I have known that have played against Bucks said they were so scared when they had to play on him because he had this intensity that scared the **** out of them, and just felt when they stood next to him that they had nothing to stop him with.

 

[pauly_moss]

MDC that was a pretty cool read. One thing that can make that a little bit hard to judge also is the playing style. I realize that this would be impossible to make a comparison but where the possesions are being accumilated as well. For eg. A team like St Kilda who plays boring sooooo sooooo boring kicking around from back flank to back flank is going to inflate their numbers of the half back players eg Gilbert, Gwilt, Fisher etc, making the ration of Hayes possies less per the teams as opposed to a team like Nth Melbourne who used to kick it long and the ball bounced between their centre line a lot making their midfielders possies worth less.

Perhaps you could make a slight tweak as well with contested possesions as well as surely they would be worth more then easy bail out ones as the player has earn't his own ball?

Very very nice though I'm not surprised Harvey rated so well.

I think the difference also between Buckley's era and Swans is not so much the elite was better more so that there are not as many very good midfielders due to the fact of so many players rotating through there.

Another factor might be game time as I would imagine that Buckley spent more time in the middle then Swan during his peak? I could be very wrong there but due to less players on the bench maybe thats the case? When did the 4 player interchange come in?

Very nice work but must have taken you ages any chance u can update last few years?

 

[Knightmare]

Actually, at his peak he got more of the ball than Pendlebury and would only have been marginally behind Swan. And when we adjust for possessions per game, Buckley's best possession rate is significantly better than Swan's, and in fact he's only behind Robert Harvey's best seasons in terms of finding the ball.

I made a longish post regarding possession rates here a while back if you or anyone else is interested.

Many thanks for the list.

Does not surprise me. Quite incredible the numbers Buckey in his prime could get, 99 in particular in such a poor team. And being able to do what he did with tha ball consistantly made him the G.O.A.T.

Pendlebury is still young so can still increase his numbers.

But Swan at his current age is probably the most interesting + relevant comparison at this stage. Quite incredible if Buckley did indeed similar numbers relative to Swan in terms of % of team posessions.

 

[mdc]

Perhaps you could make a slight tweak as well with contested possesions as well as surely they would be worth more then easy bail out ones as the player has earn't his own ball?

Unfortunately football stats have been utter horseshit until very recently, so the only numbers you can get going back 20 years are things like possessions, marks and goals.

Another factor might be game time as I would imagine that Buckley spent more time in the middle then Swan during his peak? I could be very wrong there but due to less players on the bench maybe thats the case? When did the 4 player interchange come in?

Yeah, I'd say there's no question that Buckley spent more time on ground (but again, no actual stats). It's a tradeoff though - if Swan had to play 95-100% of the game like Buckley, would he be fresh enough to win those 1-on-1's and shake off tags? I have no idea.

Very nice work but must have taken you ages any chance u can update last few years?

Cheers, didn't take too long, probably 1-2 hours all up. Just dumped all the numbers into an Excel spreadsheet and ran them.

It's up to date through 2008 inclusive, and the only player who might break into that table from the last 2 years is Ablett circa 2009...and even then it'd be at the very bottom. League Pace has increased even further, but my Excel file is on an external hard-drive somewhere, so can't give you an exact number. Just eyeballing the stats from last year, I'd guess League Pace was somewhere between 740-760, so up about 5% from 2008.

 

[Ed D]

Of all his attributes that you've named, Buckley was as good or better at everything bar overhead marking.

I actually rated Buckley's overhead marking. He never really took contested pack marks but that was more to do with the type of player he was by leading out to the ball and burning off his opponent/leading into space. Swan still seems to have a better mark on him, but not by much.

 

[Heater39]

Put Bucks at his peak in todays team and he'd be averaging over 30 disposals and a goal a game... and we all know the quality of Bucks posessions.

To answer the question, Bucks is easily a better player than Pendles and tbh I can't see Pendles surpassing Buckley as a player, although he may come close.