Whateley
Collingwood's strategy to best utilise Nick Daicos - The Eminently Sensible Phil Davis | Whateley (17.06.26)
17 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What strategic considerations does Collingwood face with Nick Daicos?
last week you delved really well into Collingwood Forest. So I just had sort of an addendum question. It was at the heart of the overall conversation. And I'm grappling with the idea of
the notion that Collingwood has to stay in contention because they have Nick Dacos and whether that's actually the wrong way around or because they have Nick Dacos, they should build a team that then is in contention. I was just curious how that proposition occurs to you.
Yeah, I think it's an interesting point because just because you've got a great player His career will hopefully go for 15 years, Gerard. Only a very select few can be the best team in 15 years or at least being the best six for every 15 years. As a player, you just want to be in the best position more often than not.
And sometimes if you think weighing that up, it's all about do you believe that your football club can do that? Yeah. Nick's job is to, A, have the maturity to see the dynamics of play more broadly and be like, okay, do I think my club are at the cutting edge of giving me the best chance and do I believe that?
Chapter 2: How can Nick Daicos elevate Collingwood's team performance?
Do I believe that if they say, hey, we're going to go to the draft this year and next year won't be ideal, but at the end of next year, we're going to go to free agent and we think we can get a very big play, blah, blah, and then the team's going to look like that. I think that is what Nick would be asking.
The ceiling's just a lot higher when you've got Nick versus if I was your best player and you said, I'm going to get a great player in the fray, he doesn't really move the needle that much, Jared. But for Nick, it's like another great player plus him. All of a sudden, you're in the top four just because of the caliber.
I guess how I would frame it is more that the ceiling's a lot higher, but Nick will be more impatient to be proven that he believes and trusts in your vision because he takes a mediocre team and makes them very good, which means he can move around and be in contention.
And I think that is the nuance that's important to understand, is that he just makes teams better, which therefore means he can be in more contention. So can you prove to him that he trusts you, that... in the majority of his 15 years of his career, he'll have more chances than not to win a premiership.
So does Lockie Neal make sense to you for Collingwood?
It would only on two facets. There's one if it's like an inconsequential salary cap position. And by that, I mean it's not forcing other challenges your way. And then secondly, there's no significant trade-off in younger talent coming through the door that can set you up for 2020. I'm probably more looking at Conway as a 2018 Jared, and that's the lens I'd be targeting.
And if Lachie Neal can come in, have a good year next year, maybe they play ā
wild card or top six that's fine but i wouldn't want it to be detrimental to their salary cap position or future moves to you know rejuvenate their list and take them forward my answer more broadly would be if i had lots of salary cap space which i believe they do i'm not going to deploy it i can front end lucky neil and i can get him in like i i don't see any harm in it just because of the state of their current midfield mix
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