Nathan Buckley makes a shattering confession about his ‘disgraceful’ behaviour when he was one of the AFL’s best players

Nathan Buckley has revealed his regret at his ‘disgraceful’ treatment of those around him during the height of his AFL playing career.

Buckley, now 52, made the shattering confession on The Imperfects podcast on Wednesday, when he reflected on life as Collingwood’s hard-nosed midfielder and captain of the club.

He played 280 games for the Pies, in which time he ruled the team with an iron fist both on and off the pitch.

But, 17 years on from retiring from footy, the Fox Sports pundit says there was an underlying layer of insecurity that he kept hidden from his teammates. 

‘The guy that had tears running down his cheeks was thankful that it was raining periodically, because he never wanted to show weakness, never wanted to show vulnerability,’ Buckley said on the podcast.

‘And I reckon if people did know, they’d be like, ‘Err… freak’.’

Buckley said he rarely asked for help and that would often leave him isolated, and that his attitude on the pitch and off it was ‘disgraceful’.

‘It was partly a protective mechanism.,’ he said.

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‘I didn’t see it (as me struggling). And there were coping (mechanisms): drinking heavily on a weekend, because if I couldn’t control it all, then I wanted to forget it, so I went down that cycle — ‘I want to control everything, but then I want to control nothing’.

‘There were a lot of ineffective, damaging behaviours that were in there. Probably the way around you viewed yourself, as much as anything. But a lot of numbing and coping strategies to try and handle that intensity of performance.’

‘I had coaches that were continually trying to have this conversation with me,’ he went on.

‘The one that was consistent was my attitude; on-field attitude towards my teammates. And my very visible disappointment, vitriol, whatever you want to call it.

‘My body language was terrible at those early stages, and it was disrespectful to myself, to my teammates, to the team, to the club, to the AFL, to the position and the benefit that I had of running around on the middle of the MCG.

‘To behave the way that I behaved was disgraceful, really, when I step back.

‘I’ve never actually voiced that specifically.’

Since retiring from footy, Buckley coached Collingwood during a 218-game stint, before moving effortlessly into punditry with Fox Footy.