Is Collingwood’s Nick Daicos the best young AFL footballer of his generation?

The Brownlow medal contender boasts shades of his father and he could become the game’s dominant player for years to come

Collingwood’s social media team put out a tweet last week asking whether a footballer had ever enjoyed a better second season than Nick Daicos. A couple of the statues on the MCG’s Parade of Champions answered the question. Haydn Bunton’s inscription reads “extraordinary endurance, balance and ball control”. I always loved the words underneath Dick Reynolds’ statue outside Gate 6 – “a brilliant and scrupulously fair footballer.” Bunton won a Brownlow in his first two seasons and Reynolds in his second. John Coleman, who has his own statue in the main street of Hastings, had two premierships and 220 goals to his name by the end of his second year.

In the AFL era, it’s hard to top Tony Modra, who had 100 goals by his 22nd game and the keys to Adelaide. But Modra was 24 and a late bloomer. This century’s standout is probably Chris Judd. Upon his retirement, I wrote about what an outstanding junior he was, and how quickly he took the competition by storm. But his first Brownlow didn’t come until his third season.

Peter Daicos had a breakout second season too. He had a brief cameo in the classic film The Club, intervening in a locker-room dust-up. He played in the centre (bring back the centreman!) before Tom Hafey swung him forward the following season. Some of his goals that year – against Fitzroy and Geelong in the finals – rank among the best of the last 50 years.

Low slung, pigeon-toed, completely unprecedented and arguably underrated, Daicos learned how to play football on a sandy, gravelly oval, where it was in everyone’s interests not to fall over. Indeed, a recurring sight on those YouTube highlights packages is of his direct opponent tottering drunkenly and going to ground. But Daicos always kept his feet.

And he was never rushed. Before he kicked, he always steadied himself. As he curled and dribbled and torpedoed his goals, his teammates and opponents would invariably shake their heads in disbelief. The commentators would call him a freak. But few footballers thought things through more. His biography is not one of the great pieces of sporting literature but the chapter ranking his best goals is a fascinating insight into how present and conscious he was. So many sporting champions are incapable of describing why they are so good. Daicos, the most humble of superstars, could talk you through each goal, frame by frame, step by pigeon-toed step. A Peter Daicos goal was something that was weighed and measured, something that was practised and perfected.

Nick Daicos is a footballer of his era. He’s a very different footballer from his dad. He’s a very different footballer from his brother, who may well be the All Australian wingman. But there are shades and reminders of Peter in everything he does – the swerve, the bow legs, the lateral vision, the way he almost never goes to ground.

And his hands are so clean. Last September, Peter was interviewed by the Age’s Greg Baum and spoke a lot about balloons. “A balloon has to be caressed,” he said. “So does a football. If you try and pull a balloon into you, you don’t just grab it, you do it gently. That’s a little bit how you clutch and control a football.”

Clutch and control. Speed and space. Poise and propulsion. It was all on display on the Gold Coast on Saturday afternoon. For a while, there was a curious subset of opposition fans who dismissed him as a stat padder, a half bank dinker. In recent weeks, he’s moved into a full-time midfield role. Across half back, his kicks opened up all sorts of possibilities. As a midfielder, it’s his quick hands, left and right, lateral and forward, that stand out. He’s built and moves like a soccer player, but he has incredible core strength and seems untroubled by buffeting and by bullying.

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The heavy haulage superstars of previous years – Fyfe and Dangerfield – are starting to feel the pinch. The next crop of champions are slighter, zippier and craftier. Zak Butters, Daicos’s most likely challenger for the Brownlow, is one. He does everything at warp speed. Together, they probably tip the scales at little more than 150 kilograms between them. But they both have incredible leg power and the ability to accelerate from a stoppage. Both of them and their respective clubs are on a collision course this September.

Daicos’s game on the Gold Coast was a reminder of his dad’s 13-goal haul at the same venue nearly 22 years ago. Peter was as sick as a dog that night. He spent the half-time break throwing up. He spent the rest of the night defying geometry. His opponent in the second half, Johnny Gastev, worked as an engraver. He was in two of the more unenviable situations a footballer could find himself in the 1990s – ducking back into the hole with Gary Ablett charging like a locomotive, and one out in an open forward line against Peter Daicos. Brisbane coach Robert Walls was later asked what else he could have done to stop the Collingwood champion. “Shoot him,” he said. For the current 17 opposition coaches pondering Peter’s youngest son, “tag him” would be a good start. If they can’t, and if this continues for years to come, Nick will be the dominant footballer of his generation. He may even get his own statue. They could get Gastev to engrave the inscription.