COLLINGWOOD coach Nathan Buckley has warned president Eddie McGuire not to look too far ahead as the club's finals campaign gets in to full swing.

 

McGuire launched an extraordinary attack on the West Australian Football Commission and the West Australian Government on Sunday for what he called "an act of treachery" for scheduling a rugby union test match during the AFL finals.

 

The rival sporting fixture means the Pies would have a six-day break if they were required to play Fremantle at Patersons Stadium on Friday night in the second round of finals. 

 

"He (McGuire) probably should project another week forward and we'll probably get an extra day in the prelim (preliminary final)," Buckley said.

 

"There's plenty of things we can control in this game and there's plenty that we can't. We'll just focus on the things we can."

 

According to McGuire, both bodies had a big role in allowing a rugby union fixture to be played on Saturday, September 14 at Patersons Stadium - a key date in the AFL finals calendar. 

 

"That is a perversion of the finals fixture," McGuire said in his president's address before the Collingwood-North Melbourne clash at the MCG.

 

"I have a very, very, very (strong) burning anger … I've got to be careful what I say here … of an act of treachery by the West Australian Football Commission and the West Australian State Government."

 

McGuire's attack was one based heavily on hypotheticals. 

 

Fremantle would also have a six-day break if it lost to Geelong on Saturday in the second qualifying final. 

 

However, the AFL hasn't ruled out scheduling the Perth semi-final on a Sunday.  

 

McGuire said the situation could have been a lot worse had West Coast, who was considered a premiership candidate before the season started, made the finals.

 

McGuire believed in that instance one of the two West Australian teams would have been shunted to play its final at the home of WA cricket - the WACA. The WACA hosted its last AFL game in 2000. 

 

"Let me give the tip to the AFL to governance around the AFL – we won't stand for this rubbish," McGuire said. 

 

"I ask for the AFL to plan 12 months ahead, for the AFL to work out that in September we might need some grounds."

 

"We won't cop this going forward."

 

During the week, WAFC chairman Frank Cooper was reported as saying the AFL had known about the rugby union international - to be played between Australia and Argentina - for a year. 

 

McGuire said he assumed the West Australian government had told the WA clubs to "put up and shut up" on the basis of a threat not to fund the proposed new stadium in the state.

 

"The football public that puts time and effort in to our game every year, for this club (Collingwood) and every other club that has been training since November should not have their chances of winning the premiership compromised because of this nonsense," he said. 

 

McGuire also took a parting shot at the scheduling of the Geelong-Fremantle finals game at Simonds Stadium next Saturday.

 

"I don't know why they're playing down at Simonds Stadium, I've heard all the reasons. I still don't understand it."