Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley has detailed the differences in reactions from departing Magpies Adam Treloar and Tom Phillips following last year's trade period.
Treloar and Jaidyn Stephenson, who was also dealt by the Pies last November, publicly expressed their displeasure with how their situations unfolded.
Buckley believes Treloar took his exit more personally, while Phillips saw it as more of a business decision.
Reflecting on the trade period in an interview with AFL Media, Buckley said the club "had very real conversations about futures" with its players before leaving the Queensland hub, where an eventual salary cap squeeze leading to several exits.
Buckley said he has tried contacting Treloar since his departure, but hasn't heard back, while his relationship with Phillips has been much healthier.
"'Flip' (Phillips) came down and watched our praccy match a couple of weeks ago and he looks like he's going really well, and I suppose there's a bit of contrast in the reality of professional existence," Buckley toldย AFL Media.ย
"We believe, and I believe I, show genuine love and care for our people and we really challenge the professional. And sometimes when there's professional decisions that need to be made, it's hard to separate the personal side of it. I've reached out to 'Ads' a couple of times and we haven't connected.
"We'll let round one come and go. I hope he does really well. He's a great guy, he's a very talented footballer and I do wish him all the best and I look forward to reestablishing the relationship in some form."
Buckley believes Treloar saw the situation much differently to Phillips despite having the same conversation with them both.
"Obviously been a lot of focus with 'Ads' and the way that transpired but the very same conversations were being had with Tom Phillips, and he handled it a whole lot differently and saw that it wasn't a personal decision, it was a professional decision," he said.
"That's not to say that Ads was wrong and Flip was right, or that you don't treat people as individuals, but for me that shows the contrasts. You can have the same conversations with two different people around exactly the same circumstances and there's going to be two different responses. That's Ads' experience and that's Tom's experience.
"But in the end the club will do what it feels it needs to do, and it needs to honour its people at the same time and we weren't able to honour the person in that regard because there's so many football players still โ you can't ignore this, you can't get away from it โ they wrap their personal worth into their professional worth.
"That's part of my job as a senior coach, to help them separate that, because they are more than footballers. And we spend a lot of time seeing our players and staff as more than just what they bring to the table professionally and sometimes that's hard to disassociate."
Moving forward, Buckley now feels the Pies are in a much better spot financially to target the player market.
"We feel like we are in that window now and if we find someone that we feel is going to really make a difference for us we'd be negligent in our duties not to follow it through."
Treloar played 94 games for the Pies after moving from GWS at the end of the 2015 season, while Stephenson and Phillips played 54 and 89 games for the club respectively.
