AFL Round 2 Collingwood v Port Adelaide: Inside the draft battle between Nick Daicos and Jason Horne-Francis

Nick Daicos was arguably the standout of the 2021 draft crop. So how did he slide to the fourth overall pick? We go inside the rise of Pies sensation.

Nick Daicos and Jason Horne Francis.

Collingwood recruiter Derek Hine doesn’t mind admitting he was a little underwhelmed when he first clapped eyes on Nick Daicos.

Back then Daicos was playing school footy far from the hype of the AFL’s Under-18 competition as he honed his craft with his father Peter each day after school at the local park.

It was the same time as “man child” Jason Horne-Francis was beating up on kids in the SANFL in a manner that already had recruiters underlining his name with a thick black texta.

Hine was used to the buzz about Collingwood father-sons — and as usual the younger brother of Pies wingman Josh was spruiked as the best of the lot.

“As with a lot of guys in the father-son program you are a bit stand-offish. We have a father-son program and staff that run it so we get consistent feedback but you try not to get too involved,” Hine recalled this week.

“You keep hearing Nick is doing this and doing that, but he was nowhere near draft-eligible. I went to watch him play for Carey when he was 16 and he played forward and did a couple of things and looked OK. I didn’t see what the fuss was about.

Jason Horne-Francis celebrates a Port Adelaide goal with Charlie Dixon and Sam Powell-Pepper.

Nick Daicos has fast become one of Collingwood’s biggest stars.

“And then I watched him just on the cusp of Covid (in early 2020) at a training camp down at Deakin in Geelong. It was just drills and he just did a few things and I thought, “Oh geez, he might be a bit better than I thought.”

On Saturday afternoon at the MCG Horne-Francis and Daicos will play together for the first time as the emerging stars of the 2021 draft crop.

One is a wild colt — brash, immature, inconsistent and yet spectacularly explosive.

The other is the modern-day professional — a relentless accumulator who kills by a thousand cuts who barely put a foot wrong in a Rising Star winning 2022.

Most recruiters could hardly split them as the best player in the 2021 national draft, before North Melbourne chose Horne-Francis as the No. 1 overall pick and the Pies were thrilled to see Daicos drop to pick 4 before they gleefully matched a draft bid.

Both were desperate to be the No. 1 overall pick.

And while Horne-Francis’ debut season ended in a trade request to Port Adelaide after a torrent of controversy, Daicos was anointed as footy’s next superstar.

On Saturday they will share the same MCG turf and yet as AFL talent boss Kevin Sheehan recalls, their paths have been wildly divergent since the single time they actually played as teammates for Australia.

Pies coach Craig McRae embraces Nick Daicos. Picture: Michael Klein.

“It was the season we didn’t have in many ways because of Covid,” says Sheehan.

“In 2020 the Australian Under-18 side played against Geelong’s VFL side. It was a whitewash _ 22 goals to two. But Daicos still found the ball and was Australia’s best player in that game. And Horne-Francis did some things but maybe touched it 11 or 12 times. That group would normally spend 60 days together but we only had them for two or three days.”

By the back end of the Covid-ravaged 2020 season Collingwood had seen enough to trade out its 2022 first-rounder for picks 24 and 30, aware it would be swallowed up in a bid for Daicos in the first three picks of that draft.

Congratulations to @CollingwoodFC's Nick Daicos on winning the 2022 @NAB AFL Rising Star 🌟#AFLAwardspic.twitter.com/SJMS8MRm1p

— AFL (@AFL) August 24, 2022

Horne-Francis would play eight senior SANFL games for South Adelaide in that 2020 season and was a player to watch.

By March 2021 Daicos was footy’s hottest prospect after a barnstorming Collingwood VFL clash against the Footscray VFL side, and despite just five NAB League games in that season he set the competition alight.

He averaged 35.8 possessions, 159 ranking points and 11 contested possessions doing as he pleased across half back and in the midfield.

Jason Horne-Francis on the burst during his Port Adelaide debut.

Meanwhile, back over the border as South Australia remained a Covid-free sanctuary in 2021 Horne-Francis was beginning to rip the SANFL to shreds.

He would play 20 senior SANFL games culminating in a stunning 160-ranking point preliminary final that included 24 touches, three goals and two posters.

North Melbourne, monitoring him for so long, was officially in love.

In that last year of SANFL football, they saw he had a full bag of tricks.

Deep forward, half forward, centre, wing, and even half back — he thrived everywhere.

Jason Horne-Francis boots his first as a @PAFC player!#AFLPowerLionspic.twitter.com/V2jNDeI0HW

— AFL (@AFL) March 18, 2023

While Roos fans would have been shattered to lose Horne-Francis, his round 1 performance against Brisbane actually justified why they were so keen to take the brilliant teen.

“That is what we viewed for three years. He is a star. When he works out he has to work hard and train hard like Nick Daicos, it will be scary,” a Roos insider said this week.

South Adelaide coach Jarrod Wright said the club never focused on whether Horne-Francis would go at one and only attempted to further his football development.

“We played him mainly forward and mid and threw him to half back to see the game differently. But he’s a contested ballplayer and he has speed from the contest, he uses the ball well and he’s a metres-gained player,” Wright said.

“I guess what happened in the last 12 months is not for me to comment on, but we love Jason and I messaged him in the wake of the game just to tell him how proud of him I am and the way he performed. He needs to back it up consistently but it will happen in time.

“Nick is an absolutely terrific player and a star but they are two types of players. The comparison is negligible now but they are two terrific young men and Jason is really happy with his environment.”

Brayden Maynard and Nick Daicos.

As the 2021 national draft approached Horne-Francis was North Melbourne-bound and the Pies intent on matching any bid for Daicos.

Both players declared their intent to be the No. 1 overall pick.

North Melbourne knew from a talent perspective the pair were impossible to split but knew Horne-Francis was “hellbent” on having his name called out first.

So why bid on Daicos?

The Herald Sun revealed Daicos would drop to the No. 4 pick on the eve of the draft — and the Pies were handed that draft gift.

In a draft where conspiracy theories abound, GWS ignored Daicos to instead bid on Dogs father-son Sam Darcy given he perfectly fit their needs.

Horne-Francis was off the board by that stage but if forced to choose they would have taken their eventual selection Finn Callaghan anyway.

He was the taller, silkier mid they needed and they too were aware Horne-Francis might eventually head home.

So it fell to Suns to bid on Daicos at pick 4, with Gold Coast having long monitored him in and knowing he would have perfectly fit their need for running half backs if not tied to Collingwood.

The saving in draft points allowed the Pies to retain three late picks in Arlo Draper (pick 45), Cooper Murley (pick 49) and Harvey Harrison (pick 52) that would otherwise have been swallowed up.

Hine says there was no deal, just a happy combination of events that saw Daicos drop down the order.

“Our focus very early on in the year had been to accumulate enough points to bring Nick in. We were pretty happy with the way it turned out. GWS bid on Darcy from memory and we certainly didn’t speak to GWS about what they were going to do. We had covered all the scenarios about whether he went one, two, three or four. It was pretty clear by then Nick was going to be something pretty special.”

Port Adelaide star Ollie Wines agrees the senior players have wanted to throw their arms around Horne-Francis this summer.

“There’s not many 19-year-olds that have been in the headlines as much as he has, and not for doing anything wrong except return to his state, and being comfortable with where he’s playing footy. He has been through a lot, he’s eager to learn,” Wines said.

“He’s not getting ahead of himself at all, and as a football group and particularly a midfield we’re pretty close and we’ve taken him in and he’s been really eager to get involved. He’s still 19 – we probably forget that at times with the growth he’s got to come.”

Will the pair cross paths on the wide open spaces of the MCG?

The Port Adelaide tyro will surely stray forward at some stage where Daicos will be situated directing traffic off half back for the Pies.

Given recruiters were unable to split these two brilliant teens across their senior draft year, who could guess which one will come out on top.