Collingwood open AFL season with tight win over Saints

6 days ago 12

There is Nick Daicos, and then there is the rest.

It was one of those nights at the MCG on Sunday when the AFL’s best player – with help from the wily super-veterans who almost everyone writes off annually – inspired Collingwood to a narrow, but important, season-opening victory over a new-look St Kilda.

Daicos is the modern-day Gary Ablett jnr, a similarly gifted footballer to the Geelong and Gold Coast legend with an uncanny ability to escape trouble before somehow finding a teammate.

Ablett did, and Daicos does, his best work in a telephone-box space surrounded by enemies.

In a match decided by only 12 points and where both sides occasionally suffered from regrettable blunders, Daicos’ dancing feet and pinpoint accuracy with his match-high 41 disposals was the difference.

Even if Saints coach Ross Lyon was not convinced of that, and content not to tag him beyond a short period in the second quarter when Riley Garcia gave him some extra attention (which actually worked for a bit).

Jack Sinclair of the Saints kicks the ball with Tim Membrey in chase.

Daicos book-ended that quieter half an hour with two 13-disposal terms where the Pies kicked nine of their 11 goals.

Collingwood coach Craig McRae described Daicos’ night out as the type of “extreme” performance that prompted him to overhaul a best-and-fairest system that saw Darcy Cameron, not Daicos, win their club champion award last year.

“The system needed to be changed to reward the extreme games – and he had an extreme game tonight, didn’t he?” McRae said. “Nick’s just maturing so much in front of our eyes.”

One of the talking points entering the clash was whether St Kilda’s $2 million man, breakout star Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera, was a superior player to Daicos.

McRae thought highly enough of the silky and slippery Wanganeen-Milera to tap Harry Perryman on the shoulder as early as last Wednesday – at the club leaders’ urging – to see if he was interested in attempting to blanket the brilliant Saint. By Friday, the plan went ahead.

Wanganeen-Milera had his moments, mostly in the first half, but his 19 disposals and one goal – a brilliant snap in the second term that gave St Kilda the lead – were modest compared to Daicos’ heroics.

The Saints tried moving him from the midfield to attack and eventually down back in a desperate bid to get him going, but Perryman never left his side. McRae opted to be versatile and adapt on the fly, including sending Jack Crisp into the midfield when Perryman went down back, whereas Lyon backed in his system.

“Should we attack Daicos … maybe, in hindsight,” Lyon said.

“He had 41. We did send someone [Garcia] to him for a little bit, and ‘Nas’ didn’t have his best night, but he never gave up and kept working. He’s got to work through that phase.

“How many of [Daicos’ disposals] were lateral, uncontested marks? I’m not too sure. I don’t think either one of them, whether it be ‘Nas’ or Daicos, [were] why they got the points … I thought [Daicos] played his part. I could be wrong – I’ve got to go home and review. It’s always dangerous. But no, I wouldn’t have thought.”

Ex-Giant Perryman, long known as a versatile Mr Fix-it, was a tad surprised Lyon and co. chose not to give someone a negating job on Daicos.

He was more than happy to do the same on Wanganeen-Milera, and spent the night admiring his own teammate’s genius.

“I’m very grateful to be able to play with him,” Perryman told The Age of Daicos.

“I reckon one day I’ll sit back and be pretty gobsmacked I got to play with him because he’s one of a kind. He’s the best player I’ve ever played with, by a mile. He’s an awesome teammate, and we love him. He wows you all the time – he’s a special talent.”

Another pre-match talking point, perhaps a tired one, was Collingwood’s dad’s army list, which was again widely written off and rated as the underdogs against the Saints and their high-priced recruits.

They fielded four players aged 32 or older – Scott Pendlebury, Steele Sidebottom, Crisp and Jamie Elliott – and were without captain Darcy Moore and Jeremy Howe in defence, but survived a frenetic final quarter and kicked 11 goals from only 40 inside 50s while conceding 63.

With that in mind, Collingwood’s high performance manager, Jarrod Wade, devised a plan under the new AFL rules, with five players on the bench, for Pendlebury to play sparingly in the first half.

The 38-year-old, five-time Copeland Trophy winner, who joined ex-Hawk Michael Tuck in playing his 426th game, bided his time on the pine for most of the first and second quarters before entering late to provide quality over quantity.

Ten score involvements and 26 disposals were the result. Lyon was mostly unfussed about Pendlebury, too.

“We thought his touches were quality … [but] he had one kick in the first half. We didn’t talk about him at half-time, with respect to everybody,” Lyon said.

Perryman said he and his teammates laugh off the criticism about their ageing list. Given two chances post-match to do the same himself, McRae took neither.

But the 2023 premiership coach clearly values experience, whether it be from Pendlebury and Sidebottom or the only slightly younger Jordan De Goey, Dan Houston, Cameron and Moore. However, McRae insists they are evolving.

“I know next week we’ll be older [again]. Our experience is enormous, but our list is different,” he said.

“We don’t have Mason [Cox], Tom Mitchell, Oleg Markov and Will Hoskin-Elliott [any more]. We’re going to need our whole list, but we’ve got a team out there that knows what to do.”