Less hubris, more realism: The Pies need to change tack or risk wasting Nick Daicos

April 10, 2026 — 3:30am

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Like Geelong, Collingwood have resisted the notion that a team must have a downturn, a multi-year period of exile from premiership contention or finals, to replenish their playing stocks.

Rebuild-aversion has been seen in public statements and off-record musings by key Collingwood people throughout the Craig McRae era.

It also has been evident in decisions made, as the Magpies defied the convention that says that teams must use the first rounds of the draft to regenerate a list old enough for lawn bowls.

This cannot continue. A reset is needed to ensure the once-in-a-generation Nick Daicos leads several tilts at a premiership in the next dozen seasons.

As we know, the Pies traded out of the draft’s first rounds for 2024 and 2025, despite fielding teams that were already the oldest in competition history, gaining the gallant Lachie Schultz and foot-skilled Dan Houston, at considerable cost. They plundered the future.

This repeated a pattern, under different regimes, of burning first-round picks for mature players.

The attitude, voiced by Scott Pendlebury most recently, is that Collingwood need not do rebuilds because they are subject to different rules of attraction.

“I think one of the benefits of being Collingwood in my time being here is you always attract free agents, you always attract really good players,” Pendlebury told 3AW, making clear that he didn’t favour long-term rebuilds. “So sometimes the draft you don’t need.”

At the Gabba last week, we saw what Collingwood resembled without Daicos and Pendlebury, the young Jedi and his instructor.

The Force was not with Collingwood, who were shredded by a Lions line-up replete with classy younger legs, further strengthened by free agents Oscar Allen and Sam Draper. The gap between those teams had widened considerably since the preliminary final.

The spectacle of Daicos’ unsuccessful attempt to run freely in the warm-up drew justified criticism from Leigh Matthews. Surely, as Matthews suggested, Collingwood should’ve had their star’s fitness sorted hours before the first bounce.

But the handling of Daicos at the Gabba is much less consequential than Collingwood’s assembling of a playing list around their young champion.

Hubris, an ancient Greek term to describe excessive pride or over-confidence (with an element of miscalculation), is a foible that tends to afflict big, powerful clubs as much as Oedipus.

This century, AFL leviathans Essendon, West Coast and especially Carlton have exhibited hubris and paid a hefty price.

“Daicos”, meanwhile, is a Greek (or Macedonian?) word that might be translated as “exquisitely skilled Australian rules footballer”.

It’s reasonable to wonder if having Daicos, a generational player, and his also excellent elder brother Josh, has led the Magpies into a hubristic pursuit of mature players, at the expense of a longer-term path.

Collingwood will field a second debutant for 2026 on Friday, when Angus Anderson takes the field against Fremantle. It is telling that both of those blooded – ruckman Oscar Steene was the first (and did well) – were 22 years of age, rather than teenagers.

Collingwood’s goal has been to emulate Geelong by remaining thereabouts, avoiding on-field recession, using a mix of trades, free agency and selective drafting. The mindset, as Pendlebury confirmed – revealed earlier in McRae’s ill-chosen “give me players, not picks” comments of 2024 – is clear: we’re Collingwood, we don’t do rebuilds.

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Geelong have obvious parallels with Collingwood. They won the 2022 flag with an ageing team, dived the next season, before coming again in 2024 (and 2025). They lived off generational players Joel Selwood and Tom Hawkins for more than a decade, as Collingwood did with Pendlebury and Steele Sidebottom to a lesser extent.

It is not yet clear whether the Cats are much better, if at all, than the Magpies. On results to date, they might be half a length ahead.

A critical difference between Geelong and the Magpies is that the Cats have gradually bled young talent into their starting 23, having retained enough draft capital to have a capable young group.

At Collingwood, there’s no one in the mould of Connor O’Sullivan, who was pick No.11 in the year the Cats missed the finals (2023) – a 10-year key-position defender. The Cats found Ollie Dempsey and Lawson Humphries later in the draft, and had the blinder of drafting Max Holmes, still just 23, in the COVID-compromised draft of 2020.

There’s no Shannon Neale, also 23 and turning into a competent key forward, at Collingwood, although there’s hope Charlie West can be a second/third tall forward in the Brody Mihocek mould.

Collingwood’s list management was not helped by the fallout between Justin Leppitsch, the new list boss, and former long-time recruiting manager Derek Hine, during 2024, when the Houston deal was made. Hine exited shortly afterwards, since taking up a job with the Tasmania Devils.

Collingwood erred in not participating in the top 30 of the rich 2024 national draft, which Richmond bet the farm on. They might have picked Jobe Shanahan, a bargain for the Eagles (pick 30), or one of the Tigers’ kids, when Gold Coast’s first-round choice was on offer in a trade involving John Noble and Collingwood’s 2025 first-rounder. Schultz, acquired for what became pick No.12 in 2023, was costly.

Geelong’s free agency excursions have been far more successful, forcing favourable trades for Patrick Dangerfield and Jeremy Cameron, game-changing champions who arrested slides and kept the Cats in contention. Bailey Smith, not as transformative and higher maintenance, still reinforced an iffy midfield.

Collingwood’s best trades have been remarkable bargains – Jeremy Howe, Jack Crisp, Darcy Cameron, Bobby Hill – rather than prized free agents. These were crucial to the 2023 flag.

Collingwood did seriously contend in 2025. Had they landed a second flag under McRae, it would justify the short-termism. They could happily hurtle off the cliff, like Richmond.

They fell short, though, with the upshot that it is not clear what this season is about. They don’t shape as contenders, aren’t rebuilding and, unlike Melbourne, aren’t replenishing with kids either. There should be a greater purpose than celebrating Pendlebury’s milestone.

If not already stuck in the unwanted territory of no man’s land, Collingwood’s troops are massing near that border.

What needs to happen now? Less hubris, more realism about the playing list. A free agent here or there – Ben King even – will not suffice when the Magpies have so many holes, especially in the midfield. Will premium free agents pick the Pies on the slide? Doubtful.

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For much of his career, Pendlebury had Dane Swan as his accomplice. Daicos has no such peer, despite his brother’s talents.

If they are to retain Daicos into the 2030s, the Magpies ought to be planning for at least three premiership windows, of three or four years, during his 15-plus year career – as Pendlebury enjoyed (Daicos has had one). This will require effective use of the draft, not simply trades/free agency and the father-son lottery.

Collingwood people might look at Essendon, Carlton, West Coast and even Richmond’s semi-intentional crash, and tell themselves, “it can’t happen here”.

They might think they’re exceptional, but the Magpies aren’t operating under different rules. Daicos only places a floor on the fall.

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