The Pies face a massive task to grab their first win when they face Sydney tonight.

The Border Mail recently caught up with former Collingwood captain and premiership player John Henderson on a range of topics, from his distinguished career to Buckley’s coaching.

“I think they made a mistake with the succession plan involving Buckley and (Michael) Malthouse,” he said.

“I don’t think Buckley’s a great people’s man.

“He was a great footballer, but he’s not a relaxed sort of guy.

“You couldn’t get on-side with him and I don’t think he’s a good coach actually.”

Henderson was a Collingwood star in the 1950s and 60s and, like a number from that generation, he’s frustrated with the modern game.

“I reckon what they should do, if a man drops on the ball and you grab him and he doesn’t knock it out, that’s holding the ball,” he said.

“This stacks on the mill is what’s ruining the game because you can’t get the ball out.

“You don’t see the long kicking and the marking, there’s not much high marking at all.

“It’s over-coached to buggery in my mind.”

Henderson played 144 games for the Pies, but says the best coach was at Melbourne, the great rival of Collingwood.

“Norm Smith was just streets ahead,” he said.

“He was a new-age tactician, well before anyone else knew what was going on.

“He was probably one of the first coaches to have plans to short-circuit fellows.

“Norm Smith was also a great conditioner, he got blokes fit.

“We were never fit until halfway through a year compared to what other sides were.

“I used to run professionally and that’s why I was fit, I know how unfit most of our players were because they never started training until January.”

Henderson was a strong-willed character, who fell out with coach Bob Rose while captain in 1965.

“Bob was pretty staid in his opinions,” he said.

“He didn’t like my take on football.

“I reckon he was picking players who just weren’t up to it.

“He’d pick them because they were the old Collingwood image of being tough players, I didn’t always agree with him.

“The turning point was picking finals in ‘65.

“We voted on a particular player and there’s five selectors.

“Two voted the way I said, and as we walked out of the selection room, Rose said to me, ‘don’t expect to be captain next year if you don’t vote with the coach’.

“I said stick it up your ass and what’s the good of having me here if you don’t say what you think.

“I firmly believe, in my mind, that we could have done better in a couple of the finals.”

Interestingly, Henderson held Collingwood’s record for most successive wins as a captain, which was only bettered by Nick Maxwell in the Pies’ 2010 premiership season.

He lost the job to Des Tuddenham, with the Pies falling by a point to St Kilda in Henderson’s final VFL game.

“You sit on the ground, nothing can console you much,” he said.

“But I was lucky, I had a wife and a little kid and was going coaching (at Yarraville).

“You try and block out the sadness and think of the positives, which I did, but nothing makes it any easier being beaten in grand finals.”

It was a world away from the thrill of playing in the Pies’ 1958 flag, in only his seventh game.

“We were 100-1 outsiders really, Melbourne had beaten us by 10 goals in the second semi,” he said.

“Most people would regard it as one of the luckiest wins ever because it rained and rained.

“The fact that it did rain helped us, Melbourne was a very quick side, so it brought them back to our pace and we were a bit more physically stronger than them.

“I got KO’d by (Laurie) Mithen in the second quarter and a lot of people think that stirred Collingwood to say you can’t do that.

“I was under a big high ball and waiting for it to come down and he went through the air and hit me fair on the nose.

“I played the game with smelling salts down my sock.

“I went from being a kid in the backblocks (Avenel) to being in a premiership side.”

Almost two decades after that historic day, Henderson moved to the Border with his wife Judy and family as regional manager with National Mutual.

And he’s never left.

“I’ve had a good happy and healthy life in the bush mate,” he said.

“As far as old footballers, I don’t have a lot of aches, I had a knee replaced but after from that I’m pretty good.”