Nick Daicos Is Breaking Footy And Nobody Can Stop Him

Is there a bloke in this competition right now who makes you want to get up off the couch and just applaud the telly? For Collingwood fans there’s only one answer, and his surname rhymes with a certain other bloke who used to run around at Windy Hill.

Nick Daicos is doing things to footy that shouldn’t be legal. And the scary part? He’s still only in his early twenties.

The kid who sees the game two seconds early

Every great footballer has that one trait that separates them from the pack. For Daic’s, it’s time. He just has more of it than everyone else.

While blokes around him are still processing where the ball is going, Nick’s already three steps into executing the next play. It’s like he’s watching the game on a delay while everyone else is watching it live. You can’t coach that. You can’t teach it at Punt Road or the Holden Centre or wherever these clubs do their fancy analytics these days. It’s just in him.

Carn the Pies, because watching this bloke play is one of the great privileges of being a Collingwood supporter in 2024.

The disposal efficiency is borderline unfair

Let’s talk numbers for a sec, because the numbers back up every bit of the hype.

Daicos is racking up possessions at a rate that used to be reserved for wingmen running through the corridor uncontested. Except he’s doing it under genuine defensive pressure, week in, week out, with every opposition coach in the AFL sending their best defensive brief his way.

And still the disposal efficiency barely drops. That’s the bit that gets me. Anyone can accumulate the footy if you’re happy to bomb it forward and hope for the best. Daicos actually hits targets. He actually helps his team score. It’s not stat-padding, its footy that wins games.

• Elite clearance work despite not being a traditional bull at stoppages
• Rebound 50s that turn defence into attack in a heartbeat
• A left-right combination that makes tagging pointless

Why tagging him just doesn’t work

Here’s the million dollar question every opposition coach in the comp is wrestling with on a Thursday night: who do you actually put on him?

Problem number one is he can genuinely go both sides of his body like it’s nothing. Most taggers are trained to force a player onto their non-preferred foot. Good luck with that here. Nick kicks it just as sweetly off either boot, so that whole strategy goes out the window before it even starts.

Problem number two, he doesn’t stay in one spot long enough to tag. He’s through half back one minute, sitting on a wing the next, then popping up as an extra midfielder at a stoppage. A traditional run-with player just can’t live in his pocket the whole game because Nick isn’t playing a traditional role.

Problem number three, and this is the one that really gets opposition supporters fuming, if you do manage to get a tagger on him, you’re sacrificing a player elsewhere on the ground. Collingwood have got enough class around him that leaving a hole somewhere else just hands us the game a different way.

Some clubs have tried the double team. Some have tried a rolling zone. Truth is, nobody’s cracked the code yet, and I reckon that’s because there isn’t one.

The footy smarts run in the family

You can’t talk about Nick without mentioning where he came from. Growing up around AFL footy with his old man Peter, who was no slouch himself, clearly gave him an education most kids don’t get.

But this isn’t a nepotism story. Plenty of kids grow up around the game and never sniff senior footy. What Nick’s done is take that footy IQ and combine it with a work ethic and skill level that’s genuinely rare air. He should of been just another kid with a famous surname. Instead he’s arguably the best player in the comp.

His brother Josh is no mug either, and watching the two of them combine through the middle of the ground this year has been one of the genuine joys of the Collingwood season. Some pundits reckon Nick’s already better than his father was at the same age. I won’t wade too deep into that argument, but I definately understand why people are having it.

Do the umpires actually help him out?

Now, I’m not here to whinge, because Collingwood fans cop enough stick for supposedly always complaining about free kicks. But you’d be lying if you said opposition supporters haven’t started grumbling that Daicos gets the rub of the green at stoppages.

Look, maybe it’s just that he’s so good at manipulating the contest that free kicks naturally flow his way. Genuinely elite players often draw high free kick counts because they put themselves in dangerous, contested positions constantly. That’s a debate worth having without accusing anyone of anything untoward. The bloke’s just really, really good at winning the footy legally, most of the time.

Opposition fans are entitled to their opinion. I reckon it’s mostly just class rising to the top.

So how do you actually stop him?

Honestly? I don’t think you can. Not fully.

The best you can hope for as an opposition coach is containment. Limit the impact, force him into contested situations where his output drops slightly, try to cut off his supply from half back. But stopping him outright, the way you might nullify a smaller role player? Forget it.

That’s the difference between a very good player and a genuine competition great. Good players can be shut down with the right matchup. Great players force you to change your entire structure and still find a way to hurt you.

Nick Daicos is firmly in that second category now. Whether he ends up with the mail on Brownlow night or not, footy people across the country already know what Collingwood supporters have known for a while.

We’ve got something special on our hands. Carn the Pies, and enjoy this bloke while you can, because we might not see another one like him for a very long time.