39 votes were received.

Results

1. Beau McCreery - 75
2. Sam Swadling/Nick Daicos - 73
3. Josh Daicos - 30
4. Ed Allan - 19
5. Lachie Schultz/Roan Steele - 7
6. Dan McStay - 5
7. Charlie West/Will Hayes - 4
8. Jordan De Goey/Isaac Quaynor/Scott Pendlebury/Darcy Cameron/Billy Frampton - 1

TOTALS

1. Nick Daicos - 1519
2. Jordan De Goey - 598
3. Josh Daicos - 416
4. Lachie Schultz - 381
5. Billy Frampton - 316
6. Dan Houston/Dan McStay - 299
7. Brayden Maynard - 252
8. Scott Pendlebury - 248
9. Darcy Cameron - 194
10. Tim Membrey - 186
11. Ed Allan - 185
12. Isaac Quaynor - 181
13. Jack Crisp/Jeremy Howe - 162
14. Angus Anderson - 155
15. Beau McCreery - 154
16. Harry Perryman - 138
17. Roan Steele - 127
18. Patrick Lipinski - 112
19. Oscar Steene - 111
20. Sam Swadling - 94
21. Ned Long - 80
22. Jamie Elliott - 72
23. Steele Sidebottom - 65
24. Jack Buller - 44
25. Will Hayes - 22
26. Charlie West - 15
27. Harvey Harrison/Liam Puncher - 10
28. Lachie Sullivan - 6
29. Wil Parker - 4
30. Noah Howes/Mitch Podhajski - 1

Hawthorn were interested in Lachie Schultz during 2023, when the then Fremantle forward was exploring a move back to Victoria, but, in-part due to Collingwood’s appeal as the premiers and the Magpies’ more aggressive pursuit, Schultz ended up in black and white.

Had Schultz gone to the Hawks, who were 16th in 2023 and seemingly still mired mid-rebuild, then it’s a reasonable bet to say that Jack Ginnivan wouldn’t have been strutting the social media stage as a Hawk.

Further, had Schultz chosen Hawthorn – and vice versa – then it’s entirely possible that Ginnivan might not have been traded from Collingwood.

Schultz was due to be an unrestricted free agent in 2024. Collingwood were willing to jump early, and pay the premium, having met with Schultz in the days after their storied premiership, in which Ginnivan had been the sub and recorded only seven touches in three quarters.

When Ginnivan met with Sam Mitchell and his football lieutenant Rob McCartney at Mitchell’s home (how many players have been hosted in that abode?) following the 2023 grand final, it was evident that this would be a more suitable marriage than Ginnivan’s three-year union with Collingwood, where his profile – on social media in particular – exceeded his station as a player in the competition.

Schultz, conversely, would prove a better fit for the Magpies in terms of his playing style and ethos. Not as flashy or cocky. Not one to play to the madding crowds, to rile up the opposition. “Shooter” was a cog in the machine, and a defensive desperado; as nearly every person I consulted for this piece remarked, Ginnivan and Schultz are “very different players” and people.

After Ginnivan’s brilliant and, at times, stormy 2022 breakout season, when he booted 40 goals and drew constant commentary for milking frees for high contact, Craig McRae had Ginnivan playing a more straightened role in 2023. This restrained role did not see him gain as much of the ball as he would have liked.

The parallel stories of Schultz and Ginnivan offer insights into the different mindsets and philosophies of Collingwood and Hawthorn.

The “Fly” Pies prize adherence to system, and while Nick Daicos is allowed greater freedom, the McRae system is less flexible than that of the Hawks, who, as one insider put it, put a fence around players, “but the fence isn’t that tight”.

Schultz, after an initial adjustment period in 2024, has shown himself to be a consummate cog within the Collingwood collective. At a team that places a huge premium on pressuring the opposition, Schultz is the AFL’s No.1 player for tackles inside the forward 50-metre arc in 2026 (39 in 19 games to date).

Schultz plays much closer to goal than Ginnivan, his scoring lifting since Jamie Elliott’s season-ending injury from one goal per game to 1.6. He is efficient rather than flamboyant – you won’t see him in mocking or edgy banter with opposition fans – a trait that Ginnivan first demonstrated in that 2022 Anzac Day game when he booted five, and which culminated in the notorious exchange with Ken Hinkley on the boundary after Hawthorn’s narrow loss to Port in that semi-final in 2024.

Collingwood had recognised Ginnivan’s talents and felt he was capable of playing upfield and wasn’t merely a deep forward with goal sense. “We had a level of confidence in his draft year that he’d be able to play up the ground,” said Collingwood’s long-serving recruiting boss Derek Hine, now with the Tasmania Devils.

But Ginnivan’s missteps in 2023, not least his decision to go to the races the night before the grand final, put him in a position where Collingwood were willing to let him go. At Collingwood, he was always a headline act – more so after a two-match suspension when filmed with an illicit substance in a Torquay hotel – and he did not have the full trust of the team’s leaders.

One could argue that the Magpies, as the more system-based team and club – and who offer only select individuals significant autonomy to run their own race (e.g. “the Daicii”) – would not have extracted the kind of footy from Ginnivan that the Hawks and Mitchell have harvested.

Schultz’s style – high pressure, but lower profile, more structured and blue collar – fitted the McRae methodology.

Ginnivan’s style – playing higher upfield, taking risks to create opportunities for teammates and hitting the scoreboard (albeit less this year) – was a match for the free-form Hawthorn DNA, as personified by Nick Watson, Ginnivan and Connor Macdonald.

Ginnivan has gained only 19 per cent of his disposals inside the forward 50-metre arc this year, compared to 35 per cent in 2024 – that share was 49 in his 40-goal season of ’22. He has just 19 goals this season after 29 last year, but is averaging nearly 20 possessions per game.

Where Hawthorn have fared better than the Magpies was on the question of draft price, as Fremantle pushed for – and gained – Collingwood’s future first-round choice, which was earlier than budgeted; this deprived Collingwood of a first-rounder in the deep 2024 draft, and became part of Fremantle’s exchange for the prodigiously skilled Shai Bolton.

The draft cost for Ginnivan was close to net zero for Hawthorn.

The way Collingwood play, as it happens, is a touch more “one for all and all for one” than the mighty freewheeling Hawks. Schultz and Ginnivan found the homes that fitted their personal traits and talents.

Time has become a great healer and motivator for the legendary Peter Daicos.

A Collingwood champion whom the footy world grew to love as the Macedonian Marvel through the 1980s and ’90s, Daicos could manoeuvre a ball in a way no one else could. Or has since.

As he’s gotten older, he has felt more and more connected to his heritage – including how his father, Stamatis (Stan), left his village of Banitsa, in the Greek part of Macedonia, in 1949 at age 15 to set off by ship for Melbourne, and a better life.

A few life moments have also prompted him to become sentimental of late – going through Covid; the deaths of his father, his brother Victor and his wife Colleen’s sister Kim; and his own cancer battle, which until now has remained private.

Daicos, 64, reflects on all of this in his new memoir, My Family’s Journey.

The book

Daicos wanted to share his family’s story because it’s been largely untold.

For his children, Maddie, Josh and Nick, he felt it was the right time to document the history so they’re aware of the hardships and successes of their long family line.

Daicos played 250 games at Collingwood over 15 years from 1979 to 1993. Winning a premiership in 1990 was the crowning glory of a long list of accolades, which also included being inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 1999.

But while we’ve known much about the highs and lows of his footy career – he’s previously written another book called Collingwood and Me – Daicos realised he needed to share more.

“I’d been asked many times to do a book again after I retired,” Daicos tells VWeekend.

“I kept saying, ‘There’s really nothing to talk about, everything is pretty well documented in my career’. I was going back and forth. It was only David Hung, who manages a lot of my stuff off field and he said, ‘You know what … why not?’

“If we didn’t have that chat 20 times, we had it 40 times. But then he said to me after my dad passed (in March 2023), he said, ‘Why don’t you write a book about your dad coming here? You’re always talking about your family and the trip here.’

“It’s something I’ve always spoken to the kids about and that’s a great way to honour my dad.

“I want the kids to understand how we got to this point. A subtle message to everyone to understand the background of their parents.

“I wanted to honour the migration and the courage shown by a lot of the migrants coming out.”

One moment that really hit home for Daicos was when his eldest son, Josh, made his debut for Collingwood in 2017. Daicos’s dad, Stan, was in the rooms. He wasn’t “a hugger”, but he took in the surrounds and said thank you. Daicos recalls looking at him and saying, “No, thank you for coming here, Dad.”

“It’s a conversation I’d never had with my dad,” Daicos reflects.

“I still remember him looking at me now, this stare I’d never seen, and he was taking it all in. That’s pretty much why I did it, because no one really knows the story.

“All my uncles are passing, my brother passed, not many people know. (Colleen’s sister) Kim passed, she was diagnosed with cancer and passed on Christmas Day and then (my brother) Victor passed a week later from a burst ulcer, and then I got diagnosed (with cancer).

“All this stuff was happening, we’d had a torrid time and the thing through all this really, was the football. It was the release and gave us the real spark.”

Health battle

It was in late 2021, around the time Nick got drafted to Collingwood, that Daicos started to feel unwell.

Through the urging of wife Colleen and daughter Maddie, he went and got some tests done.

On the Monday before Easter in 2022, two days before he and Colleen were due to fly to Brisbane to watch Josh play his 50th game, he pulled over into a side street off Nepean Highway to phone his GP.

He went into shock after hearing the words: “You have cancer”.

“You’ve got spots on your kidneys both sides,” he recalls hearing.

“There’s a lump in your left lung. That’s not good. But the worst part is you’ve got a big tumour in the stomach called a retroperitoneal liposarcoma.”

It wasn’t long until Daicos switched his whole demeanour into positive mode.

“What I got out of football, I’ve done knees and had these injuries and I ended up coming good,” Daicos says.

“So as much as it was a shock ... I always thought with cancer, I’ll have my operation and get it out of the way.

“I didn’t think I’d die. I wasn’t panicked by it, I was always waiting for results, but I was pretty good. I could feel myself getting better. That’s all I go off now, I reference pre- and post-cancer, and I feel really strong.”

Daicos had part of his left lung removed, lost a kidney, his gall bladder and part of his colon. He had the 25cm tumour removed and then went through six weeks of radiation. He was at Melbourne’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre for three weeks recovering.

In the days after surgery in October 2022, he wrote his goal for getting better on his information card: “Pies win flag 2023.” It turned out to be a spot-on premonition. But during that time, not everything was smooth sailing and he endured some terrible days.

“I kept saying I’d go home and the exit date kept rolling out further,’’ Daicos says.

“I had a lot of people ringing me saying, ‘What’s wrong? And are you OK?’

“There were a lot of people talking but it was something I didn’t really share. I wanted to keep it in house. And I didn’t want anyone treating me differently.

“It was hard enough having it, and us having to live with it, but I didn’t want my kids’ everyday life to be impacted by it. It’s one thing them thinking about it and another thing constantly talking about it. My dad wasn’t well, too, and I knew he was going to pass.

“I told my mum, Filomila (Phyllis), when I got my first clearance and she said, ‘Oh are you going to be OK?’

“I said, ‘Yeah, everything is good.’ And that’s the last we’ve spoken about it. We never spoke about it again.

“She had cancer herself in 1992 or 1993. Once she had her op, she had some treatment and we never heard about it again. She gets on with it and is 85 now and doing well.”

Daicos is getting stronger each day. He has six-monthly check-ups and has been back in the gym from early this year.

“I remember coming out of theatre and thought I’d be in agony, but I was really comfortable,’’ Daicos says.

“Within two days, I was up and walking and the very next morning, I turned my mind into building up. Sometimes I had bad days and you feel terrible, and I did fall into a hole at some points.

“But I’m really positive, mentally I’m positive. It’s just part of my recovery. It happened to me and it’s past me now.

“One of the things I wanted to acknowledge, after it was all said and done, the people at Peter Mac. I would have loved to have publicly acknowledged them because they’re about raising much-needed funds to treat people and enhance research.

“I felt like I just walked away from it, but I know they knew how I felt.”

Secret worth keeping

There were many reasons Daicos didn’t want to share his health story, and he is still reluctant to talk about it now. As one of his doctors said: Once you’re a cancer patient, you’re always a cancer patient.

To know that Josh and Nick played some of their best footy while they all shared and navigated this impactful secret gives him mixed feelings.

“I just didn’t want my kids living with it, it would have become a circus,” he says.

“But I do want people to understand how mentally tough and resilient they were through that period.

“And what we’ve been through is similar to many other families, we’re not unique in that.

“It’s also normal going through something traumatic that you don’t want to rehash it, because you’ve come out the other side.

“There were a few times where I was nearly found out, and even the doctors were amazed it didn’t get out. But I’m just looking to the future. In a weird way I look forward to the check-ups and being told I’m all clear.”

Surviving the jungle

Daicos knew he was doing well on the road to recovery when he got an unexpected call to join I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! – the reality show filmed in the South African jungle and based around having minimal food and resources.

It was March 2024, and he was determined to do it.

“I went to the jungle because that was part of my recovery,’’ Daicos says.

“I really felt I was getting stronger. I thought, shit, if I can put myself through something like that and get through it, I’m going to be good.

“If I got anything out of that jungle, aside from being bitten to death, I reckon it showed me that I was fine. I lost another 10kg which worried me because I’d lost 20kg through (the cancer battle).

“The family talk was around, ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you putting yourself through it?’

“I needed to prove to myself that I was OK. I thought I did really well, considering we weren’t eating. After a couple of days there, I just thought, it is what it is, and I structured myself to get through as far as I could. I was fully in.

“They knew my condition because there were insurances involved, but it was all above board. I was never going to talk about (my cancer) while I was there, I don’t think it was the setting.

“There were little signs I was getting better and better.”

In the end, Daicos survived 25 days and ate a pig’s anus, a rat’s tail and a whole scorpion. He was ready to go home.

Father-son joy

There isn’t much that gives Daicos more reason to smile these days than watching his sons run around on the footy field.

Having them both play for the team he was so passionately involved in is truly a dream come true.

“We’ll talk about footy, but I don’t want our conversations just to be about football,” Daicos says.

“There’s a bigger picture, I want to know how they’re feeling in general. Nick and I were just laying in bed and watching a bit of footy the other day and just talking. I love that because I always did that with the boys.

“I’ll let them open up because they get so much football. They are genuine football lovers and I can understand they don’t want it to dominate their thinking.

“It’s the way they go about it that I’m proud of. Even Josh, I didn’t think he’d get up for the Adelaide game (in round 20). I was horrified he did; he was still hobbling two days before and that was just around the house.

“Nick even as a kid, he would get a lot of attention and people would say, ‘Are you OK with that?’ I’d say just watch. He gets angrier and he gets more determined and he just goes harder.

“It is what it is and we always said it is a form of flattery and a badge of honour in a sense when opposing teams, they’ve clearly been talking about you through the week and they’ve got to try and stop you.”

Daicos says he and Nick don’t talk about awards, but he does admit it was a tough situation when Nick didn’t win last year’s Copeland Trophy Best and Fairest after a standout season.

“I’ll say emphatically that we did not storm out. We spoke to a few people and said goodbyes and we just walked out,” Daicos says.

“Why should it surprise people that we’d be disappointed? Taking nothing away from Darcy (Cameron)’s year, he had a great year. We can be disappointed and you just move on (and) let the Camerons really enjoy Darcy’s year, and that for us was the most important thing.

“I’ve got no issues with the club. People get married and fight with the person they love the most and then they make up. We had that moment and then you just move on and I have moved on.

“I’ve told the club that and they know how I feel. I don’t want it as a distraction (and) I don’t expect any special treatment.

“The club winning and the boys playing finals is what it’s all about. That’s why I’m so pumped at games because I am a supporter and aside from having the boys, I love the football club.”

Back in my day …

Daicos was well paid as a star player, but it’s all relative. In today’s game, he may have hit a million dollars a season, but he would have still “worked my arse off” with the ethos ingrained from his dad. He once owned six houses, but he also turned down significant offers to leave Collingwood.

“It’s like anything, I always say I’m sure the guys who played in the ’70s looked at me and said, ‘Lucky bugger’. And it’s just what it is as things move forward. You look at football these days, it’s big business,” Daicos says.

“I’m horrified, though, that these officials are still outstripping the footballers because they come and go.

“Some will muck it up and some will enhance the game as we know it, but for them to be earning more money than these footballers, I’m just horrified.

“I think the players deserve to be getting the majority of the funds. I don’t know where the money goes, I’d love to see the breakdown of it all and where the money’s been placed.

“We’ve got a Tasmanian team coming in and it’s costing us a billion dollars for the stadium. What will the payroll be, $17m, it’s a pittance considering the infrastructure that needs to be put in place.”

Daicos says all the talk surrounding Nick’s future has no impact on them.

All he wants is for him to be happy and thriving – just like his dad wanted for him.

“It’s his career and he’ll decide what he’s doing,” Daicos says. “My thing is always, as long as they’re being looked after”.

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/vweekend/no-one-really-knows-the-story-why-peter-daicos-is-opening-up-on-his-secret-battle-family-history/news-story/ced26abfbbd36eb9ae45129a442083a2

32 votes were received for R21 v Geelong.

R21 v Geelong results

1. Dan McStay - 84
2. Nick Daicos - 63
3. Isaac Quaynor - 43
4. Darcy Cameron - 33
5. Josh Daicos - 26
6. Jack Crisp - 9
7. Patrick Lipinski - 8
8. Jeremy Howe - 7
9. Harvey Harrison - 5
10. Ed Allan - 4
11. Lachie Schultz/Charlie West - 3
12. Dan Houston/Steele Sidebottom/Tim Membrey - 2
13. Jordan De Goey/Scott Pendlebury/Harry Perryman/Ned Long - 1

46 votes were received for R22 v West Coast

R22 v West Coast results

1. Nick Daicos - 83
2. Dan McStay - 65
3. Lachie Schultz - 45
4. Josh Daicos - 35
5. Billy Frampton - 26
6. Ned Long - 10
7. Darcy Cameron - 8
8. Ed Allan/Tim Membrey - 7
9. Jack Crisp/Beau McCreery - 4
10. Liam Puncher - 3
11. Dan Houston/Harvey Harrison/Noah Howes - 1

TOTALS

1. Nick Daicos - 1446
2. Jordan De Goey - 597
3. Josh Daicos - 386
4. Lachie Schultz - 374
5. Billy Frampton - 315
6. Dan Houston - 299
7. Dan McStay - 294
8. Brayden Maynard - 252
9. Scott Pendlebury - 247
10. Darcy Cameron - 193
11. Tim Membrey - 186
12. Isaac Quaynor - 180
13. Ed Allan - 166
14. Jack Crisp/Jeremy Howe - 162
15. Angus Anderson - 155
16. Harry Perryman - 138
17. Roan Steele - 120
18. Patrick Lipinski - 112
19. Oscar Steene - 111
20. Ned Long - 80
21. Beau McCreery - 79
22. Jamie Elliott - 72
23. Steele Sidebottom - 65
24. Jack Buller - 44
25. Sam Swadling - 21
26. Will Hayes - 18
27. Charlie West - 11
28. Harvey Harrison/Liam Puncher - 10
29. Lachie Sullivan - 6
30. Wil Parker - 4
31. Noah Howes/Mitch Podhajski - 1