AFL coaching great Leigh Matthews has taken aim at his former club Collingwood, accusing the Magpies of poor injury management when it came to dealing with superstar midfielder Nick Daicos.
The Magpies defended their decision to fly Daicos to Brisbane to take on the Lions on Thursday night only to have him withdraw with a right calf injury just 15 minutes before game time.
Daicos was not subjected to a fitness test despite dealing with the corkie all week. He did not look comfortable when he stepped out for the warm-ups with a compression bandage on the calf, nor when he left the field and later returned without the bandage.
His absence was sorely felt in the Magpiesโ 54-point loss, exposing his teamโs lack of A-grade midfield class.
Matthews, the 1990 Magpies premiership coach, and now a Lions board director, said he could not believe how Daicos had been treated.
โHe had a corked calf, earlier in the week he wasnโt quite right. They just sort of assumed he was going to be okay when it got to the pre-match warm-up,โ Matthews, also a three-time Lions premiership coach, said on 3AW on Saturday.
โWhy wouldnโt you have given him a run-around during the day just to make sure you are okay? When it happens at the last minute, I donโt think it was a ploy, a tactical ploy. I think it was just one of those things that surprised Collingwood.
โBut I canโt, for the life of me, think how that kind of injury wasnโt tested earlier in the day to know if he was okay or not okay because a last-minute change throws Collingwood right out of kilter.โ
Matthews was on the field as part of Fox Footyโs pre-game build-up interviewing Magpiesโ coach Craig McRae when the cameras panned to the struggling Daicos.
โIf he was a horse, you wouldnโt back him, would you?โ McRae quipped at the time, still unsure if Daicos would play.
Matthews, who coached Nickโs famous father Peter in the Magpiesโ 1990 premiership side, was befuddled by what he had seen.
โIf he got ill or hurt himself in the warm-up, that happens occasionally to players, we understand that. But this is just an injury that was there all week,โ Matthews said.
โYou have to make sure before you went to the ground that he is okay, or not okay. Because the last-minute part of it to me is a really disruptive thing for the Collingwood cause. I canโt for the life of me understand how that was allowed to happen.โ
When contacted on Saturday, the Magpies pointed this masthead to McRaeโs post-match response on Thursday night.
โHe had a corkie in his calf. On Tuesday at training, he just wanted to get moving, that was the intention. He didnโt train and was hobbling around,โ McRae said on Thursday.
โNickโs an ultra-positive guy, one of the best professionals in the game, let alone at our club, and we gave him every chance to improve. Then he gets out here [for the warm-up] and we thought heโd start improving. He just didnโt.โ
Asked if he was suggesting this was poor management, Matthews replied: โWell, yeahโ.
โJust the timing, because it looked like no-one was aware. It seemed to have come to a surprise to everybody, the coaches, his teammates, Nick, himself, maybe, that it was half hour before the game – I am not right – when you should have known that at least earlier in the day,โ Matthews said.
โThatโs what I am saying because these last-minute things become really disruptive. Letโs face it, if he is not there, they are going to be a weakened team, but the timing of it was really poor.โ
The Magpies made another odd call last week when they left skipper Darcy Moore on the field against Greater Western Sydney when he had a hamstring issue. Moore left the field to be tested in the first term, and returned in the second quarter. He played out the game, but scans later revealed the injury was more significant than hoped and he will miss up to a month.
The Daicos injury debate comes at a time when his remuneration has emerged as an issue. While he is contracted until the end of 2029, and is earning about $1.1 million this season, according to industry figures who chose to remain anonymous to speak freely, the new Tasmania Devils club is circling.
Daicos could earn far more on the open market, and he and his management have yet to open discussions about a salary bump, despite the Magpies having cleared significant room in their salary cap to pay him and a potential prized free agent.
McRae is hopeful veteran Scott Pendlebury (Achilles tightness) also returns to face Fremantle in Adelaide on Friday.
