After another disappointing season, the fourth in a row, McGuire has made a decision to bring back Graeme Allan to head up the football department and make the tough calls required to help regain some onfield respect. Neil Balme was demoted to make way for Allan and as a result, Balme accepted the position offered to him by Richmond to become their head of football.

Travis Cloke will move on and assistant coaches Ben Hart and Steve Grace have been told they are no longer required, but more intriguing is the direction Collingwood plan to take with their playing list. It is this factor that will decide the fate of Nathan Buckley and his players under the leadership of  Allan.

If I was a Collingwood supporter, what has been heard and speculated on so far about new recruits is cause for great concern.

Collingwood have reportedly signed Chris Mayne for four years, have put a two-year contract offer to Daniel Wells and have had enough of an interest to chat to Nick Dal Santo and ruckman Ivan Maric.

Mayne has under-achieved for a number of years now and I find the four-year commitment to him staggering. At least he is in an age demographic that fits in with where the Pies are currently situated, but how the other three are good fits for Collingwood is anyone's guess.

What is the plan at Collingwood? The club is attempting to rebuild again and yet they are talking to players like they are a club on the cusp of winning a premiership.

Buckley has made strong calls throughout his time at Collingwood and been given the opportunity to  build the list that he wants.

With players such as Pendlebury, Sidebottom, Reid, Moore, Treloar, Fasolo and Grundy, the body of a good side is there. I know Collingwood have their hands tied in this year's draft because of the Treloar deal but to decide to top up with players in the twilight of their careers would be nothing short of  irresponsible.

The decisions made so far tell me that either Allan lacks patience and doesn't want to build the right way or that Nathan Buckley as coach feels that he is running out of time  and needs success now.

The club  may also believe that they have lost so much experience in recent years that they need to fill the void of Cloke, Swan, Toovey, McCaffer​ and possibly Nathan Brown but those guys hardly played at all this year. I would be continuing with the youth path at Collingwood and not giving away games to veterans that will not be part of the club's next premiership assault.

I would love to know what head recruiter Derek Hine truly believes is the right path to take or has he also lost his power through  Allan's arrival?

Hawthorn  under ex-Collingwood premiership player Graeme Wright are the masters at building and regenerating their list. The Hawks are after Jaeger O'Meara, Tom Mitchell and Tyrone Vickery and are expected to land all three of them.

Their  senior players have taken pay cuts and Brad Hill and one other regular senior player will leave the club to make these deals happen. O'Meara is 22, Mitchell is 23 and Vickery is 26 and that is what I call recruiting for both the now and the future.

Hawthorn would have signalled their intentions to their players' managers a long time ago so nothing just falls in their lap. They would have been happy all along to move Brad Hill and one other player out of the club to make these trades happen. That is astute recruiting.

If Collingwood go down this track in recruiting any players over 30, it will be a bewildering decision.

Hawthorn  should be their template. They keep setting the benchmark in all departments while clubs such as Collingwood, Richmond and North Melbourne make short-term decisions on players that can help win a few games of football but never set you up for a tilt at the next premiership.

Josh Gibson, Jack Gunston, Shaun Burgoyne, David Hale, Ben McEvoy, Brian Lake and James Frawley were all hand-picked by Hawthorn to fill a role that was lacking previously and none of them were acquired for nothing. You don't receive a player of quality or currency for nothing, which is the trap these underperforming clubs continually fall into.

There are no quick fixes in football and there is only one Patrick Dangerfield who can catapult a good team into possibly a great one by season's end.

As Eddie McGuire sometimes says, everyone needs to stop and take a deep breath. Maybe he needs to give that same advice to some of his own.