One wild stat exposes the most glaring flaw in Nick Daicos’ game
Collingwood’s Nick Daicos may be one of the best players in the AFL, but an alarming stat was once again exposed on Thursday night.
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Nick Daicos endured a tough night at the office on Thursday as Collingwood locked horns with Fremantle.
The Brownlow Medal favourite was kept well under wraps as the Dockers deployed a hard tag on the 22-year-old.
The Pies rested several veterans but produced a near perfect performance on the road to win 15.7 (97) to 12.11 (83) and claim a seventh victory of the season.
But the win was soured by a heavy collision involving Pies forward Lachie Schultz, who was concussed but play was allowed to continue, leaving Collingwood skipper Darcy Moore “rattled”.
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Daicos finished the contest at Optus Stadium with just 18 disposals, only the fourth time in his career he’s failed to rack up 20 or more disposals.
Two instances occurred during his rookie season in 2022 when he had 19 disposals against the Suns in Round 7 and then 16 disposals against Carlton in Round 11.
The most recent contest came in Round 21, 2023 against Hawthorn when he only had five disposals.
Among the lowly numbers however for Daicos was one stat that continued to expose the star’s biggest flaw.
Daicos can slice and dice teams like only a handful of players in the league can, but when he pushes forward he’s severely hampered in one-on-one contests.
The reason why … he’s never taken a contested mark since entering the AFL. That’s right, after 79 games he has not taken a single contested mark.
It’s something his teammates are well aware of as Isaac Quaynor pointed out once again on Thursday night.
“You want Nick Daicos wherever you can get him and it’s good to have him up forward,” Quaynor told Channel 7.
“He almost took his (first) contested mark. We’ve been trying to get him a contested mark all year so it was close.”
Brother Josh Daicos also took great delight in ribbing his brother’s inability to take a pack mark following the club’s win over Essendon in Round 7.
“We get into Nick sometimes trying to get him a contested mark,” Daicos said on Fox Footy.
“When they saw me have two back-to-back they got around me which made me feel good.”
Making matters even worse for Nick, a parody account on X has begun keeping track of the number of days.
The account titled ‘Has Daicos taken a Contested Mark?’ posted on Tuesday stating it had been 1,145 days.
Along with his aerial struggles, Daicos was hampered throughout the contest on Thursday night with Channel 7’s Ryan Daniels noting he appeared to have suffered a niggle during the pre-game warm-up.
“Pre-game Nick Daicos had a little bit of a tight spot in the lower back and we just saw him getting some work done on the boundary,” Daniels said on Seven’s coverage.
“He’s been off for a few minutes so we’ll keep a close eye on it but he might be carrying something.”
The hard tag along with Daicos not being at full flight saw the Pies shift the star midfielder deep inside the forward line, as he also nursed an apparent hip injury.
Despite their best player not having a major impact on the contest, it mattered little as they bounced back to record their seventh win of the season.
While Fremantle may not exactly be among the current premiership contender conversation, the fact Collingwood no longer need Daicos to flourish to win is a truly scary sign for the rest of the league.
With Daicos struggling, Jack Crisp stepped up in a big way with 29 disposals while Jamie Elliott was unstoppable in front of goal as he kicked six.
The Pies are now facing a dream run home for the remainder of the season with only two more games outside of Victoria.
They’ll return to action next weekend when they welcome the Adelaide Crows into the MCG on Saturday afternoon.
Originally published as One wild stat exposes the most glaring flaw in Nick Daicos’ game
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