Collingwood young gun Nick Daicos opens up on his shock injury, recovery timeline, the Brownlow and staying grounded

Nick Daicos has the football world at his feet, but it has not come all that easy for the Pies’ budding superstar. He sits down with Glenn McFarlane for an exclusive interview.

Nick Daicos initially thought he had dodged a bullet.

In the first few hours after last Saturday’s loss to Hawthorn which had seen him benched in the final term following a significant knock to his knee, the Collingwood young gun was told his MRI scan had revealed only bone bruising.

“It (the MRI) came up clean, no cracks and I was like ‘Beauty, I will play this week’ (against Geelong) and they (the medical staff) were like ‘We’ll see, you might not play this week’,” Daicos told the Herald Sun in an exclusive interview.

As an extra layer of precaution the club also decided to do a CT scan of his right knee “just to see some of the finer details.”

Daicos was just about to leave the club that night along with his brother Josh, wondering how he was going to convince the conditioning staff that he would be right to take on the Cats when his mobile phone rang.

It was the club’s doctor, and it wasn’t good news.

“I was just leaving when I got the call late on Saturday night to tell me there was a crack (in the knee),” he said.

“While I was so down (about the news) the first person who came up to me coincidentally was Oleg Markov. Everyone else had gone. I just gave him (Markov) a bit of a hug and said to him: ‘Well, here’s an opportunity’.

Nick Daicos spoke exclusively to the Herald Sun. Picture: Michael Klein

“This (injury) opens the door for someone else. That’s the way I am trying to look at it. It is one of those things where I have always tried to have perspective in anything that I do.”

Perspective has been something that has been drummed into Daicos since he was a kid growing up with prodigious talent and a famous surname.

His father, Peter, one of Collingwood’s greatest players, has always used it as one of his key lessons for his kids to point out that you can’t always control the situation, but you do have a choice in how you view it.

It also happens to be one of key planks of Craig McRae’s Collingwood.

“That is Collingwood; that’s the environment we have created here,” Nick Daicos said. “It is not about individuals. It is all about the team.

“Unfortunately, I have gone down and I am out of the side now, but someone else comes in and plays that role. I can’t wait to see what the boys are going to do in the next few weeks.”

Friday’s clash with Geelong was the first Collingwood game that Daicos has missed since he was drafted as a father-son pick in late 2021. While it wasn’t an easy experience, he is grateful to have a pathway planned for a return in either the second or third week of the finals, depending on his own recovery rate, and also on Collingwood’s qualifying final fate.

He knows Brisbane’s Will Ashcroft hasn’t got that same luxury, having suffered an ACL three weeks ago.

Daicos was one of the first to text Ashcroft when he suffered his injury; Ashcroft was just as quick when contacting Daicos after he suffered his own injury last week.

“No one wants to see anyone in the competition get injured and he (Ashcroft) was having a great season before he was injured,” Daicos said.

“I reached out to him when he did his knee and vice versa, he reached out to me.

“When I saw his text I got a bit of perspective out of it. There are a lot of people who are missing 12 months of footy. I’m lucky enough to be working to be back for the finals.”

Nick Daicos watched the final quarter from the bench after his injury. Picture: Michael Klein

THE SPOTLIGHT

Daicos, who signed a new deal last week that locks him into Collingwood for the next six seasons, accepts his experiences in 2023 has contrasted vastly from what most 20-year-olds have had to deal with.

It hasn’t been easy at times.

But that’s the product of what comes with being one of the most talked about footballers in the country off the back of an extraordinary second AFL season which had him - for a time - as an odds-on Brownlow Medal favourite.

His injury last week flipped the market, given he will have missed the final three matches of Collingwood’s home-and-away season.

But as much as he hasn’t always loved the outside narrative about him - particularly a claim that he had played some “selfish” football at stages of the recent clash with Carlton, which he strongly refutes - he realises it is a part of the game that he cannot do anything about.

He says the support from his family - parents Peter and Colleen, teammate/brother Josh and sister Madison - has shielded him from the attention as much as possible, and the support of his teammates, McRae, and the coaching staff has been just as soothing inside the club.

“I guess we open ourselves up to that (external talk), we are public figures. We open ourselves up to positive comments and negative comments,” he said.

“How much I take of that is up to me, I guess.

“It definitely has its challenges. I guess it is probably not something that every 20-year-old goes through. I am still working out the best way to go through it.

“But I am very lucky that I get to come in here (to the club) and it is just another day to get to work. I try not to hear any of the external noise. We preach that as a team.”

In the lead-up to the Hawthorn game, McRae sought out Daicos to check on his welfare and mindset after the ‘selfish’ claims were aired on radio. Then the coach was also one of the first to check in on him when Daicos had his first stint in the hyperbaric chamber last Monday - around 36 hours after he suffered in the injury - as he seeks to fast-track his bone healing.

“Fly is unreal,” Daicos said. “I got a call from him in the hyperbaric chamber. He was very optimistic and was encouraging me in the recovery process.

“He was just checking in to see how I was going mentally first, which meant a lot to me. He has his own pressures as a senior coach, so for him to be thinking about me was amazing. That is the sort of person he is.”

Nick Daicos has been in the spotlight all season. Picture: Michael Klein

THE TAG

Anyone who knows Nick Daicos’ backstory will understand that he has been tagged almost since he was a 12-year-old.

But he knows each tagger represents a different challenge.

Port Adelaide’s Willem Drew tagged him a month ago for three quarters, but Daicos found space in the final term to kick a final term goal to help lift the Magpies stage a fightback.

For the most part he has been able to shake the tag this season.

But Hawthorn tagger Finn Maginness was able to restrict him to only five disposals in three quarters last week - before his injury - which had some wondering if the Hawks had unearthed a template for stopping one of the most damaging players in the game.

Daicos knew Maginness was coming to him in the game, given the Hawks had used the same hard tag on him in a pre-season game earlier this season.

He says he has taken a lot of learnings from the game, and from the tag, as he says the Magpies have from their performance against the Hawks.

“I sort of knew he was coming to me … he (Maginness) did a really good job,” Daicos said. “I think Hawthorn executed their plan really well.

“Obviously, they were on top of us throughout the day. I am sure we have taken a lot of learnings from the game and that will hold us in good stead in the future.”

Daicos follows McRae’s lead in that any loss is an opportunity to learn. “I guess every tagger tags differently, and I will continue to work through ways to expose the tagger and as a team we can hopefully manipulate the tagger,” he said.

“It is one of those things where we have a number of players who can step up if one of us is having a down game, or being tagged, and I think that’s the sign of a good team.”

THE INCIDENT

Daicos knew it wasn’t good from the bone-on-bone moment that Hawthorn’s James Blanck crashed into his knee.

The Magpie stood his ground and marked as Blanck made front on contact.

He would later say it felt like his knee had been “smashed to smithereens”, but at the time he still felt like he could run out the pain.

“It was just one of those things that there was nothing I could do to avoid,” Daicos said. “It was just a contact injury.”

“I knew straight away it was a fair whack. I was hoping it was just a corkie and I would be able to run it out. But it just wasn’t budging at all.”

Daicos kept on playing, desperate to try and help the Magpies get back into the match.

“I started the fourth quarter on the bench and when I came back on, five minutes in, it was completely gone. There was no point trying to get through it.

“It was that sort of numbing pain. It sort of felt pretty heavy whenever I planted my leg.”

He had no choice but to sit out the rest of the game. The game was gone; little did the Magpies know they were about to lose their most important player for the next six weeks.

Nick Daicos reacts after kicking a goal against the Hawks. Picture: Michael Klein

THE BROWNLOW

Daicos says he was far more concerned about missing games than missing out on potential Brownlow Medal votes.

“Because of Covid and with all the lockdowns, I only got to play seven games across two years (in 2020 and 2021) in my draft years,” Daicos said.

“It was great playing so much over the past two years. Including practice games, I had probably played 50 games in a row (for Collingwood). I’ve loved being out there every week.

“To know I was going to miss games was tough.”

He understands the narrative surrounding the Brownlow in regard to his injury, but says he is far more focused on winning a premiership medal.

“Team success is where my focus has been all along,” he said. “I guess I give my all every week and a by-product of me giving my all has been the talk about the Brownlow.”

“That has been very humbling for me. It is a discussion I didn’t think I would be in so soon, if ever, but my focus has always been on team success and a premiership.”

His father Peter, who famously played in Collingwood’s 1990 drought-breaking flag, has long drilled that into Nick and Josh.

“My dad (Peter) has always preached, and so has ‘Fly’ (Craig McRae), that team success lasts forever … that’s where you find that sense of connection and belonging,” he said.

Playing alongside his brother and one of his best mates would make it even more special.

The Daicos siblings could have a rare distinction of being selected in the same All-Australian side later this month.

“Josh has always been a great support to me,” he said. “I hope they select true wingers in the All-Australian team, so he could be in there alongside Errol Gulden from Sydney, who has had an amazing year too.

“I would love to see Josh rewarded with All-Australian selection. He is very deserving of it and hopefully it falls his way.”

Nick and Josh Daicos have driven Collingwood to top spot on the ladder. Picture: Getty Images

RECOVERY PLAN

One of the first words of advice he received after finding out the extent of his injury came from his father, who had to work his way through injuries to become one of Collingwood’s greatest players.

“He said to keep my head high and to keep working hard,” Nick said. “He said the team is going well and should be in great shape for the finals.”

“But he also told me he was a good recoverer (from injuries), so he said he hoped that he had passed that onto me.”

Daicos and Collingwood have left nothing to chance in their bid to have him fit and firing again as soon as possible.

By last Monday morning Nick had met with the club’s head of high performance Jarrod Wade as they plotted a pathway towards his return in the finals. He hopes to be back running during the bye round.

“I met with Wadey on Monday around a little plan that we can execute,” he said. “It is a great network we have at the club with a really good medical staff and physios.”

“I’ve got stuck right into my rehab. I’ve got a really good support network at the club and I have got great faith in the people around me.

“There is not much I can do in the first couple of weeks but through nutrition and a little exercise hopefully I will get my bone healing as quickly as possible.

“I met with the dietitian from the club who has given me some supplements to help my bone heal and also doing the hyperbaric machine has been another proven bone healer.

“I’m really excited to support the team in the last few games before the finals.

“I’ll stay positive. (But) I’m itching to get back out there.”

That dream of coming back and potentially helping Collingwood chase a flag is the thing that is driving him through each hyperbaric chamber session.

“As a group, we are so set on achieving it all together, and that’s the thing about chasing team success, it is all about achieving it with your best mates.

“We’ve just got this massive love for one another, and that’s what’s driving us. It would be amazing … that’s what is driving me every day in rehab.”

Originally published as Collingwood young gun Nick Daicos opens up on his shock injury, recovery timeline, the Brownlow and staying grounded