COLLINGWOOD is the favourite for the 2012 premiership… betting exchange Betfair tells us punters are already nibbling at the Pies… and, prima facie, Nathan Buckley has his best shot at claiming the game's ultimate prize.

The Magpies' pre-season has begun and, we probably should all remind ourselves, Buckley is the man in the chair.

The game's Holy Grail has famously, and cruelly, eluded Buckley.

He left the Brisbane Bears to join Collingwood, only to watch Brisbane merge with Fitzroy and later celebrate three consecutive premierships.

Adding salt to the wound, Buckley played in two of those Grand Finals for the losing team. And was best on ground in one of those finales.

There was also a final sting in the tail. After his retirement at the end of 2007, he sat in the coaches' box to watch the team he had captained for nine years win the 2010 flag.

Yes, he was an assistant, but, although that may look nice on his CV, the reality is history only credits coaches and players with premierships.

In the book The Champions: Conversations with Great Players & Coaches of Australian Football, Buckley said: "Footy is about winning premierships. In many ways, it's a cop-out to say it's more about the journey than the destination. I think I said that [after the 2003 Grand Final loss to the Brisbane Lions] as much as a coping mechanism as anything else.

"It's actually a lot about the journey but, ultimately, it's about premierships. That's what clubs exists for."

And in many ways that is what Buckley exists for.

Indeed, it does seem destiny has been thumbing its nose at a man who so desperately craves AFL silverware.

After all his time in the game - dating back to 1993 when he wore a Bears jumper and won the Rising Star Award - Buckley still has a duck next to his name in the cups column.

Buckley left Brisbane because he wanted to live and breathe the AFL-enriched air of Melbourne. He undoubtedly thought it was a ticket to premiership glory as well. It wasn't and that must gnaw at Buckley's bones.

He is, however, aware this is how the football Gods play.

"All the talk about players like myself deserving a premiership before they retire is rubbish," Buckley said in the book (published by Slattery Media in 2006).

"No one deserves a premiership. Players earn it. And they don't earn it over a career; they earn it for the efforts and sacrifices they've made leading up to, and including, that one premiership season.

"No one has a God-given right to win one. It's strictly a product of what you're prepared to put into it as a team ... it's like everything else in footy - you don't get it handed to you on a silver platter, you've got to earn it."

Buckley was a beautiful footballer, albeit flawed in some areas. But he was smart, smart enough to be aware of the chinks in his armour and chisel them out.

In 2003, he won the Brownlow Medal. It was recognition for the complete player he had become. His sublime kicking skills could now be used as a defensive or attacking weapon, as well as midfield, and he had become a bold and emblazoned leader.

Buckley, we know, is pernickety about professionalism and self-improvement, and he has seemingly taken these traits into his new life as a coach.

It is interesting to note that the three great midfielders of the late 1990s and early 2000s, Michael Voss, James Hird and Buckley, will, in 2012, coach the clubs they are icons of, and again face each other in battle.

When these men were at the peak of their powers there was always robust debate about which was the better player.

Of course, Hird and Voss captained their clubs to premierships.

Now is Buckley's chance to turn the tables on his rivals. As they attempt to rebuild their clubs, Buckley has inherited a team with its premiership window ajar.

And as Geelong coach Chris Scott has just taught us, coaches can win flags in their first year on the job. 

As a young man, Buckley may have been impatient for success. As he matured, he learned to be patient. He has served a longer coaching apprenticeship than Voss and Hird and just maybe that patience, and devotion to Collingwood, will finally pay off.

The saying goes, good things come to those who wait. Nathan Buckley is about to find out if it is true.

The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL