Lynch had to take on Blues' big man Matthew Kreuzer for nearly the entire game after the Pies lost Darren Jolly to a cracked rib in the second quarter.
Jolly suffered the injury in a rucking contest with Kreuzer in the opening three minutes of the game and spent the first quarter trying to overcome it.
But, a duel with the big Blue on the boundary shortly after the start of the second term saw Jolly double over in pain and be substituted out, before going to hospital at half time.
"Quinten was huge to be able to work as basically the sole ruckman through the last three and a half quarters of the match," Buckley said.
"We didn't recruit him for that but he was fantastic and showed a lot of guts, and I thought the players as a whole in the last quarter when the game was on the line wanted to win the game, which was more than encouraging."
Buckley is unsure how long Jolly will be sidelined for but the feeling within the club is that the two-time premiership ruckman has cracked just the one rib.
The Collingwood coach said Lynch did what he needed to do with 19 hit-outs and six clearances, plus seven inside 50s, after Jolly's injury threw their structure out.
"We're not expecting him to be a 90 per cent game time ruckman, but best laid plans can go awry and the fact was that all of our players had to make adjustments to the flow of the game, to the demands of the game," he said.
"You wouldn't have thought when you woke up this morning it was going to be wet but it was.
"That's what footy throws at you – plenty of questions and you've got to find the answers.
"Q in particular was great and I thought the balance of our list did what they had to do."
Second year forward Jamie Elliot stood up as the Pies' leading goal-kicker, in a side that is still missing Alan Didak, Dayne Beams, Alex Fasolo and Dale Thomas.
Buckley said the 20-year-old was making the most of his opportunities with his five-goal bag.
"Jamie's had a breakout game last year when he's had 10 forward 50 tackles against Freo midway through the season and we saw his defensive pressure," he said.
"We've seen his marking ability and this is the first game where he's hit the scoreboard and taken most of his chances.
"You put all those little bits together and he's a dangerous proposition for us.
"Right now, possession is nine-tenths and he's in there and if he keeps performing, he stays [in the team]."
Sunday's win was the second in a row the Pies managed with key players out, after Beams and Heath Shaw were late withdrawals last week against North Melbourne.
Vice captain Scott Pendlebury said the fact the team was grinding out wins despite the forced omissions was the best part.
"At the moment, our best 22 is the side that played today," Pendlebury said.
"Those guys know what role they're asked to play, and at the moment we're all chipping in and doing it as a team.
"We're not relying on one or two guys to do the job and that's the most pleasing thing."
Quinten Lynch is a forward in NAB AFL Fantasy. He averaged 68.05 points in 2012. Register your team at our AFL Fantasy Hub.
Jennifer Phelan is a reporter for AFL Media. Follow her on Twitter @AFL_JenPhelan.
