AFL Grand Final 2023: Collingwood star Nick Daicos and his redemption moment
With five minutes left on the clock, Nick Daicos trudged back to the centre square and said to himself “that is on me”. What happened next, shook the foundations of the MCG.
Nick Daicos had a chance to bury Jarrod Berry and came up grasping at thin air.
It was the missed tackle that could have haunted his dreams forever.
As he trudged back to the centre square after the last-quarter moment cost his Pies the lead, Daicos said to himself: “That is on me”.
Yet AFL champions are elevated to that lofty pedestal because of what they do in times of adversity and struggle.
On an afternoon where the football community witnessed a grand final to rival any in the modern era, Daicos got his AFL redemption moment.
It was a culmination of every practice session with his brother in the park, every lesson about intestinal fortitude his brilliant father Peter had drilled into him over the years.
At only 20 years of age, he might one day finish with a glittering resume packed with Brownlow Medals and Norm Smith Medals.
But for Daicos on grand final day it was about atoning for the split-second moment that could have seen Brisbane deliver a grand final heist.
That decisive match-turning moment came exactly halfway through a final quarter that seemed firmly in Collingwood’s control.
All that was missing was someone to put the foot to Brisbane’s throat.
Collingwood had kicked 1.5 in the third term and had failed to land the killer blow despite last-term dominance as Brisbane held up the dam wall.
As Brisbane surged the ball forward, Lions midfielder Jarrod Berry roared into Daicos’ path.
He spun and twisted in a blind turn that saw the Rising Star winner grasping and grabbing and failing to stop his opponent in his tracks.
In a flash, Berry had booted the ball into Charlie Cameron’s path, where he eluded Brayden Maynard and then Isaac Quaynor with his quicksilver feet to steal the lead with a left-foot snap.
It was daylight robbery.
Collingwood, 15-0 from three quarter time leads this year, had been floored.
There were five minutes and 31 seconds on the clock.
So much time to repent.
From that centre bounce, as the MCG crowd held its breath, it was Daicos darting and wriggling free of a tackle to squirt a handball to the nerveless, ageless champion Scott Pendlebury.
The former captain’s long, high kick went forward, and Daicos was off in a flash.
In the time it took for it to reach the contest on the 50m mark, he was at the fall of the ball.
He gathered mid-air and fired off the kind of handball most players can only dream about.
By the time he had landed, De Goey was surging across 50m with fire in his eyes and a premiership to win.
It was a goal to shake the MCG’s foundations.
THE SPIN, THE GATHER, THE FINISH!#AFLGFpic.twitter.com/knRqI66HyS
— AFL (@AFL) September 30, 2023
As Daicos told this masthead in the rooms amid the euphoria of the Collingwood premiership, the only remedy to that missed tackle was to get his hands dirty.
“I remember that moment exactly,” he said, premiership medal draped around his neck.
“When I missed the tackle on Berry I thought he was going to handball over the top. Cameron kicks the goal. I am going back to the centre square. Head spinning. I am thinking, ‘That is on me. That is not my finest moment’. For me it was turning to the next moment. “How can I influence the next centre bounce? Fortunately I was able to do that and Jordan De Goey … far out, what a finish.
“I saw the ball in the air and it was like time stopped. I was about to fist it forward 30 metres and as I was about to launch with my hand I heard Jordy saying, ‘On my right, on my right’.
“So I flicked it straight out there and it fell in his lap.”
Father Peter was sitting in the stands having spent the better part of 20 years helping equip his son with the gifts for a Grand Final winning do-over.
“Yeah, I remember the incident. Those things will happen,” said 1990 premiership member Peter.
“And you have to try to turn it around. Sometimes even when you are trying to win the ball and you lose it, it makes you look like you could have gone the other way. But he kept his head. The next time around he made sure he got hold of it and banged it over to Jordy. He was in mid air when he took it and handballed. He knew Jordy was there.”
As Steele Sidebottom and Joe Daniher traded audacious goals – veteran Sidebottom from range despite lead in his legs and Daniher’s snap to give the Lions hope – it was Daicos who landed the final blow.
As the ball bobbled and Lions fans howled at a Lachie Neale advantage call that delivered no advantage, a composed Daicos again delivered the perfect assist.
This time a perfectly weighted pass to Will Hoskin Elliott to allow his teammate to run down the clock.
Game over.
Legend established.
The second-year phenomenon would finish with a game-high 29 possessions and four Norm Smith Medal votes (behind only Hill and Keidean Coleman).
And the class to laud his teammates for all those team-oriented moments that make the Pies the 2023 premiers.
“That is part of the game. You will have moments when you are not happy with yourself and then moments when you have the opportunity to capitalise on,” he said.
“There were so many moments in the game that were unbelievable. Scotty gets it forward. Jordan kicks an unbelievable goal. I said to Bobby Hill you are our X factor. He lives for moments like this.”
So does the younger Daicos, who adds a premiership to a Rising Star award for keeping his head when a 20-year-old of his experience had every moment to lose it on footy’s greatest stage.
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