DENIS Pagan still remembers the first time he met Nathan Buckley.

Buckley was Port Adelaide's Magarey Medal winning star and was meeting with the North Melbourne coach and his brainstrust as they attempted to woo him to Arden Street.

Except that it was all a bit of a farce. The Kangas already suspected Buckley was signed, sealed and delivered to Collingwood and Buckley's demeanour during the meeting, as he casually sprawled across the bed of his hotel room while munching an apple, only confirmed that belief.

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"He'd already been seduced by their charms," Pagan said this week.

Buckley would detour via Brisbane for 12 months before heading to Collingwood to become one of its, and the game's, finest players. But the Kangaroos were a proud bunch and Pagan was never short of ammunition whenever he coached against the Magpies.

"It was something I reminded our players of," Pagan said."He didn't want to come to our club."

One player doesn't make a team, but Buckley only had a 6-11 record as a player against North teams coached by Pagan.

"I don't think he liked that part of it," Pagan said."You know what footy is like, it's war without weapons."

One member of many of those North teams was Adam Simpson, the boy from Eltham, taken by the Kangas with their first pick at the 1993 national draft and who was initially taught to play League footy by Rodney Eade, then an assistant coach at Arden Street under Pagan.

"He was very coachable, very much a sponge," Eade said this week.

"He immediately got himself fitter and faster and he was the quintessential development player at the time. He learned off some good people."

Adam Simpson and Nathan Buckley at Friday's media conference. Picture: AFL Photos

Simpson played two senior games for North in 1995, but was largely a mainstay of Eade's premiership team that won that year's reserves premiership.

He played every game in the seniors the following season as North broke through to win the AFL's centenary premiership, and would eventually play 306 times for the club including the 1999 premiership and five years as skipper from 2004.

"Just a quality individual from a terrific family," Pagan said.

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Simpson started initially as a defensive forward before joining a deep and talented midfield rotation. He wasn't the greatest kick in the side, but it was his game awareness that became a huge asset. He could spot trends in games before they spiraled out of control and it was clear from an early stage that coaching would be his calling.

He was also an early adopter, and soon a superb practitioner, of the third-man up at a contest.

"Of all the players I played with there were two guys I always thought would be coaches – Alastair Clarkson and 'Simmo'," North Melbourne champion Anthony Stevens once wrote.

Simpson and Buckley would play on each other often."The Kangas of the day were good on the tongue," Simpson recalled on Friday at the Grand Final eve media conference. "There was some good sledging and we'd let them pick up the pieces afterwards."

Nathan Buckley and Adam Simpson square off in 2000. Picture: AFL Photos

Buckley played a bit off half-back when he first came to Collingwood, but once Tony Shaw took over as coach Buckley was unleashed as a full-time midfielder. He was fanatical with his preparation and irrepressible on match day. Think Dustin Martin without the 'don't argues'.

For much of his career, Buckley was referred to as 'FIGJAM' as in, 'F***, I’m good, just ask me.' It was seen as derisive, but also a mark of respect because in this newly-minted era of full-time professionalism in footy, he was the most insanely-driven and most ultra-competitive player in the competition. If he had a failing, it was that he didn't understand why everyone else wasn’t like him.

He told journalist Ben Collins in the Slattery Media Group book 'Champions', "When I became captain of Collingwood (in 1999), I demanded the best, and the most, from myself and others – and it backfired. Early on, I thought: 'Everyone needs to work as hard as me, train as hard as me, run as much as me. If it's good enough for me, it should be good enough for everyone.' That approach worked for me personally because I'd lived it my whole life, but placing those demands on everyone else and expecting them to adopt it all within a month or two was unrealistic."

His intentions were honourable, and once he added some empathy to his approach to football, he really was the complete package. Like Simpson, he was on the fast-track towards becoming an AFL coach.

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North was among the first clubs to attempt to prise Buckley out of Collingwood’s grasp and offered him the senior coaching job for the 2010 season following Dean Laidley's resignation. That spooked Collingwood president Eddie McGuire who never envisaged Buckley wearing the colours of any other club, leading to footy's version of the Kirribilli Agreement and seeing Buckley work under Mick Malthouse for a couple of years before taking over as senior coach in 2012.

The day Buckley informed the Kangaroos he wouldn't be coming was the same day Simpson retired as a North player. A few weeks later Simpson would join Hawthorn as an assistant coach under Alastair Clarkson, who captained him in that 1995 reserves premiership team.

The AFL coaching scene is remarkably fraternal. Former teammates go coaching elsewhere but remain friends. One-time adversaries link up a third club. When Buckley and Simpson first came together it wasn't in the confines of a footy club but sharing a room while undertaking the Level 3 coaching course at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.

Then in November 2016 they accompanied coaching guru David Wheadon on a study tour at the prestigious Stanford University on the outskirts of San Francisco. The mutual respect had always been there, but when they de-briefed every evening over a few beers, a friendship was forged.

"I admire 'Simmo'," Buckley said on Friday. "He wants to find the best for himself and the people he is invested in and I’d like to think that’s a quality of mine."