Collingwood rising star Nick Daicos proved how good he is at escaping tight tagging jobs when he was held all day by Marcus Windhager not long ago. In his first full game as an attacking midfielder, the young gun finished with 30 classy possessions, helping lead his team past their old foes. Even more impressive than his overall performance was the way his sensational second half showed how he can succeed even when opposing teams bring unrelenting heat.
Windhager’s tactics were to break Daicos’ rhythm, allowing his touches to be contested and going after him off the ball. This strategy led to a very visible and rhythmic set of duels between the two players all match long. Daicos had four free kicks paid and Windhager two against him for their respective sides. This underscores just how contentious their duel has been. The two were locked in some heated battles, but Daicos lived rent-free in his head while still playing his game.
In the fourth quarter, Daicos netted an important goal that helped put his squad out of reach. Soon afterwards, his teammates slid into home in jubilant celebrations! His capacity to stay calm and make plays while under pressure drew accolades from coaches and commentators, including His Royal Highness Head Coach Urban Meyer.
Purposeful and controlled Collingwood coach Craig McRae praised Daicos’ display, applauding his ability to get the job done despite the rolling wind wind turbine blades of Windhager. First of all, I just loved how Nick went about it tonight, McRae said. “One of the big things to do to a tagger is say ‘let’s see if they can go with you’. Tonight I thought Nick won that battle.”
McRae called attention to the match’s high physicality. He acknowledged that in Windhager’s capacity as a tagger, his responsibility is to disrupt — but there is a line that should be absolutely never crossed. The tagger’s task is to create a disruption, and he has certainly done that while deftly working the loophole. Only now it’s up to everyone else to decide whether he’s jumped the shark.
Even after the punchy tactics used against him were going full tilt, Daicos was still Collingwood’s go-to man with the ball in the final quarter. His big brother, Josh Daicos, was cut from the same cloth, thugging his way to 30 possessions as well. Collectively, they were the catalyst that made their team victorious.
Tigers forward Jack Riewoldt, who was commentating the game, observed that this was a new level of attention from Windhager on Daicos. “I reckon he’d be filthy at that. As Riewoldt called out, “He’s never gonna come out and tell you. That’s his marquee player almost getting assaulted for 120 minutes.
McRae further explained his protective strategy for Daicos. He continued, “There’s always going to be a lot of cameras on it… We don’t want him to fight the battles; we’ll fight them for him.” He stressed the need for unity among the troops. He wants to make sure that on all that knife-edge physical play, their star forward never gets sandwiched and isolated.
