Buckley says Magpie lapses costly

Collingwood AFL coach Nathan Buckley says his side can’t take a win over struggling Gold Coast for granted with his own team struggling to put together a four-quarter performance.

Ahead of Saturday’s away clash with the Suns, who are sitting second last, Buckley said short form lapses were proving costly.

He said the seventh-placed Magpies had lost their way for a period in almost every game this season.

They lost to Geelong in round six after a 10-minute opening scoring spree by the Cats and then went down by five points to Richmond last Sunday after squandering a flying start and letting the Tigers kick five straight goals in the second quarter.

“We’ve shown some consistent footy but in basically every game we’ve had 20 minutes where the opposition has had momentum and we haven’t been able to arrest them taking full toll on the scoreboard,” Buckley said on Tuesday.

“We’ve been able to get out of those because we’ve played three and a bit quarters of really strong solid footy.

“But you’re not going to win as many games as you’d like if you’re not playing four quarters of footy and that’s the challenge for us.”

When quizzed on what was letting his team down when other teams had momentum, Buckley said contested ball, tackling pressure, not being able to get the ball out of their back half or control it when they had attacking opportunities.

“The players are hurting but we don’t want them tripping over their bottom lip, that won’t get them anywhere,” he said after losing to Richmond.

Saturday will mark the first time Collingwood have lined up against the Suns under Rodney Eade, the Magpies’ former director of football.

But Buckley wasn’t concerned about Eade having an intimate knowledge of his team.

“He’ll have an awareness of our mentality from last year but there’s things that we’re doing differently,” Buckley said,

He said it was too early in the week to make a call on injured trio Alan Toovey (knee), Steele Sidebottom (thumb) and Jackson Ramsay (shin).

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