Nick Daicos entered the AFL beneath gargantuan expectations.
The son of a Collingwood legend was touted as the perfect expertise within the land and if not for the AFL’s Father-Son rule, would simply have been taken with the primary choose.
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Instead he was finally chosen with the fourth general choose after three groups opted to not bid for him and power Collingwood to surrender greater than they wanted to.
That draft came about on November 24, 2021. Five hundred and nineteen days in the past, Daicos’ title was learn out as a draft choice for the Collingwood Football Club.
Now we’re sitting right here having discussions about if he’s the perfect participant within the AFL.
It’s not a ridiculous comment or assertion to make both, you possibly can’t simply hear it and scoff and inform the individual they’re a nonce.
It’s a critical matter of debate and because it stands proper now, Nick Daicos could nicely simply be the perfect participant within the competitors.
The 20-year-old is producing a second season in contrast to something we’ve seen within the historical past of the AFL and the numbers again it up.
Before you pull the set off and label me a moron, right here’s the place the Pies teen ranks after the opening six rounds of the season.
He’s first within the competitors for the next: disposals per recreation, efficient disposals per recreation, uncontested possessions per recreation and complete metres gained.
Daicos has now change into the outright Brownlow Medal favorite at a ridiculously quick value of $2.75. Ahead of Marcus Bontempelli ($6) and Clayton Oliver ($7).
On Tuesday it was the third time in six video games this season he’s amassed over thirty disposals and kicked a number of targets. No different participant within the league has accomplished it greater than as soon as.
Triple M’s Ethan Meldrum went a step additional with the statistics, mentioning the younger star had accomplished one thing no different participant had accomplished within the historical past of the sport.
“31 games into his career and Nick Daicos has already recorded 40 disposals/multiple goals in a game twice, the earliest a player’s ever done that in history,” he tweeted.
Former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley summed up his affect on each recreation he performs in after his Anzac Day masterclass.
“He makes the game look simple and that’s what all the guns do. He makes the simple decisions and does the ordinary extraordinarily well,” Buckley mentioned on Fox Footy’s On the Couch.
“That little banana that he did, if you watch that in slow-mo the way he was able to place that ball. He was unfussed, under pressure but executed it perfectly.”
Neutral followers have been calling for coaches to throw a tough tag onto him and hold a physique on him always, however these have fallen by the wayside.
Teams have tried to place a participant on the supremely proficient Pie, just for him to make use of his insane footy smarts to elude the tag and proceed to rack up the footy at will.
The tags of simply how good he’s and may be have are available in thick and quick all through this season, even the legendary Peter Daicos says his early affect on the sport can’t maintain a candle to what his son is doing.
“For sure, they were different eras, but his (first 31 games) have been better … way better,” he mentioned after Collingwood’s Anzac Day win.
He wasn’t alone in his evaluation both with Essendon coach Brad Scott praising the teen for performing nicely above his years.
“I think he’s just a very special player who is doing things that someone in the system for 10 years can’t do,” Scott mentioned post-match.
“But we all knew this coming through. We all watched him as a junior.
“The father-son rule has worked for a few clubs over the journey and we think it’s a really good rule.
“He’s having a huge influence and teams have tried different things to try and curtail it and he finds a way to get around it.
“He’s always going to get the ball. You can do your best to stop it, but he went from the 18th-ranked player on the ground at three-quarter time to the first or second by the end of the game.
“That’s just a quality player stepping up at the right time and we couldn’t match it.”
Collingwood fell painfully quick in 2022 after shedding within the preliminary remaining to Sydney by a single level.
Behind the meteoric rise of Nick Daicos, they’re out to go a step additional and thru the opening quarter of the season they’ve proven they’re the staff to beat.
Source: www.news.com.au
