Great News: Collingwood’s are bringing him back after…..

March 23, 2024 SEWUESE Blog 0

Collingwood's Nick Daicos torched over embarrassing act against St Kilda | news.com.au — Australia's leading news site

IT MIGHT be the best first 50 games of a career this century. Perhaps even in the AFL era. Nick Daicos will on Thursday reach the first milestone of his sparkling AFL career when he runs out in the black and white for the 50th time. It is not overstating it to say his time at Collingwood has already been transformative as a key player in changing the Magpies and helping lift them from second last on the ladder when he arrived at the end of 2021 to their 16th premiership last season.

The son of club champion Peter and younger brother of fellow star Josh’s list of achievements ranks highly already as the 2022 Rising Star winner, a premiership player and All-Australian in 2023. He also came second in the Pies’ best and fairest last year, third in the Brownlow Medal and third in the AFL coaches’ player of the year. If not for a late-season injury, he would likely have scooped those three awards too and made more history.

To mark his upcoming maiden milestone, we have ranked every one of Daicos’ 49 AFL games in order of brilliance, impact, output and significance in this countdown to his No.1 game so far.

The toughest game of Daicos’ career saw the Hawks physically target the Pies matchwinner. Finn Maginness was sent to Daicos to blanket his influence and did it successfully, restricting him to just three disposals to half-time. Daicos was then moved to full-forward in the third quarter to try something different after he’d received a knock earlier in the game, but the action followed him, with Daicos in the middle of a scuffle after a Collingwood goal. He was awarded a free kick for being hit with a jumper punch and snapped truly, but had his game ended shortly after when he was crunched by Hawks defender James Blanck in a front-on collision after taking a mark. He finished with five disposals and watched the rest of the game icing his knee on the interchange bench. Scans later that night revealed a fracture to his knee that would put him out for at least six weeks, hurt his Brownlow Medal chances and leave the Pies without their gun ahead of September. Would he make it back in time?

One of the very few games of Daicos’ career when he couldn’t get into the contest. He had four disposals in every quarter to finish with 16, but wasn’t able to have the same impact as most of his games so far. The Pies snuck over the line by four points without their new star having a big say on the result.

As the flu swept through Collingwood, Daicos was one of the many players under the weather for this game. He had 19 disposals – the first time in his career to that point that he had dropped below the 20 mark – and did his bit as the Pies cruised to a win over the Suns. The illness dogged Daicos for a few weeks through this period of his debut year.

A game dominated by the Bulldogs from start to finish meant Daicos’ influence was minimal. The Dogs jumped to a 32-point lead at quarter-time and ran away with a 48-point victory, with Daicos having 21 disposals in Collingwood’s loss. The majority of those – 74 per cent – were in the defensive half of the ground, with the Dogs’ commanding performance giving little chance for some of his usual dash.

He was one of a trio of Pies to enter the game having missed training through the week due to illness, but Daicos was able to have a more than fair output in the defeat to the Tigers. He had 25 disposals and 530 metres gained with them, kickstarting plays out of the backline with the quick feet and quicker thinking.

The Pies got rolled by the Lions at the Gabba on Easter Thursday, with Daicos collecting 27 disposals to continue his run of ball-getting early in his career. However, Champion Data has this as the second-lowest game for Daicos in AFL Ratings points (3.3 in player ratings), with Daicos not having the same say in scoring chains for the Pies as most of his other appearances.

A strange day at the MCG for Daicos’ second AFL game, with the fire alarms accidentally going off around the ground and instructing fans to evacuate in the second term. Things were quickly sorted after the ‘false alarm’, with Daicos having 22 disposals, continuing his cool start to his career off half-back. Champion Data’s ranking system has this as the lowest rating Daicos game.

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