AFL world has a field day over Nick Daicos' drought-breaking stat
Nick Daicos has finally ended one of the most bizarre statistical anomalies in the AFL in Collingwood's 51-point thrashing of the Hawks on Friday night.
At just 22 years old, the Collingwood superstar is already a premiership player, a two-time All Australian and a club best and fairest winner.
But staggeringly, one thing the diminutive midfielder had not done in an AFL game was take a contested mark prior to Friday's dominant 16.11 (107) to 8.8 (56) win over Hawthorn.
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A contested mark in footy is when a player marks the ball while one or more opponents are either attempting to spoil or mark the ball themselves.
Daicos' failure to add that stat to his glowing resume had gained a life of its own, with countless comments, plenty of ribbing from his teammates and even an X account dedicated to the pursuit.
Just over five minutes into the Pies' huge Friday night clash with Hawthorn at the MCG, the moment that has taken Daicos 82 games and well over 1000 days finally arrived.
Watch the milestone moment in the video player above
After a ball up following a goal from Hawk James Worpel, Steele Sidebottom took possession and wheeled around, spotting Daicos in the middle of the ground.
Daicos had a small gap to his opponent, coincidentally Worpel again, and took the mark right as the Hawthorn star made body contact and tried to spoil.
While there were some doubts over its authenticity, the moment appeared as a stat on the live scores and was immediately noted by the commentary team on Channel 7.
'That looked like a contested mark to me,' Matthew Richardson said.
James Brayshaw replied excitedly: 'I think it is. Is that the numero uno?'
Richardson replied: 'I'm calling it. That had to be.'
Daicos can slice and dice teams like only a handful of players in the league, but when he pushes forward he's severely hampered in one-on-one contests.
That at least explains part of the reason why he'd never taken a contested mark since entering the AFL.
It's something his teammates are well aware of as Isaac Quaynor pointed out once again during Collingwood's clash with Fremantle a fortnight ago.
'You want Nick Daicos wherever you can get him and it's good to have him up forward,' Quaynor told Channel 7.
'He almost took his (first) contested mark. We've been trying to get him a contested mark all year so it was close.'
Brother Josh Daicos also took great delight in ribbing his brother's inability to take a pack mark following the club's win over Essendon in Round 7.
'We get into Nick sometimes trying to get him a contested mark,' Daicos said on Fox Footy.
'When they saw me have two back-to-back they got around me which made me feel good.'
Adding to the theatre of the situation, a parody account on X had begun keeping track of the number of days.
Prior to Friday night's game, the account titled 'Has Daicos taken a Contested Mark?' last posted on May 22 that it had apparently been 1,145 days without the star achieving the feat.
In a superb pivot, the account tweeted again during the match-up with the Hawks, writing: 'Has Daicos won a Brownlow? No. Day 1,170.'
Fans online were also having a field day over the so-called achievement.
'Reckon he might get his first bruise at some stage in the next 82 as well,' one fan quipped.
'Never seen any player get congratulated for this,' wrote another.
'Here comes 'doesn't count' or 'softest contested mark',' another fan correctly predicted.
'I've seen my dog take a tougher contested grab than that!' was another observation.
A fifth joked: 'He's got a taste for it now. Watch out.'
A sixth added: 'The fact that people care about this is concerning.'
Outside of Daicos' moment, the Pies trailed briefly in the first term before putting their foot down in another ominous performance.
Kicking 12 goals to five after quarter-time, Collingwood star Jamie Elliott led the way with a game-high five, backed up by Brody Mihocek (four) and Sidebottom (two).
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