Collingwood veteran Jack Crisp has warned anyone who tags Nick Daicos to expect physical attention from the young superstar’s Magpie teammates after Saint Marcus Windhager’s tactics were criticised during Saturday night’s clash at Marvel Stadium.
St Kilda tagger Windhager clamped down on Daicos from the first bounce, when he gave away a free kick for a shove to the chest, but some of his off-the-ball tactics were described as “outside the code” by dual North Melbourne premiership player David King.
The battle between Marcus Windhager and Nick Daicos was must-watch viewing all night.Credit: AFL Photos
Vision aired by Fox Footy showed Daicos reaching for his hamstring and turning around to remonstrate after Windhager made contact with his leg. The Saint then whacked Daicos on the bicep as he followed him into the forward line, and then appeared to deliver a soft slap towards his face, prompting the Magpie to throw his head backwards.
“This is the sort of stuff that’s going on. Little knees to the back of the hamstrings. I think that’s too far,” King said on Fox Footy.
“Taggers do anything to get under the skin,” King added. “Just little things that are a step too far. [Knees] are a no-go, I think that’s outside the code … If that’s happened 15, 20 times, I’d expect a call from the AFL. We’ve got to look after our star-factor players. The game owes these players some sort of protection.”
Collingwood scored a workmanlike 34-point victory, kicking the last four goals of the game.
Daicos, who still had 30 disposals, broke free to kick a brilliant goal during the final term, prompting Daicos to celebrate as if he’d won a grand final and his teammates to erupt around him.
Marcus Windhager lays a crunching tackle on Nick Daicos.Credit: Getty Images
Crisp told this masthead the Collingwood players were determined to stick up for Daicos, which showed as Scott Pendlebury chested Windhager as he followed his opponent to the interchange bench.
Daicos appeals to the umpire.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
“That’s something we spoke about throughout the week. He’s gonna probably get tagged every week,” Crisp said.
“He’s gonna work through parts of it, and we’ll help him out with a lot of it as well. We’re not going to leave Nick out on an island to get through the battle. We make sure we support him.
“If he’s getting close attention, we’ll give it all back. Make sure he knows that we’re supporting our teammate.
“We’ve got to support our young players, especially Nick. If they’re going to follow him around mid, back, forward, wherever he goes – even to the bench – we will make sure we help him out.”
Collingwood coach Craig McRae said it was up to the umpires to decide whether Windhager had crossed the line.
“The job of the tagger is to disrupt, isn’t it? That’s his job. He’s doing it within the rules I suppose if they don’t pick it up,” McRae told Fox Footy.
Daicos breaks free of the tag. Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
“I’m not going to comment on the kneeing and things like that; that’s obviously up to others to decide if that’s a bit too far.
“I just loved how Nick got on with it tonight … some weeks they [taggers] can run with you, some weeks they can’t. Again tonight, I think Nick won that battle.”
St Kilda coach Ross Lyon had a different view of the Daicos-Windhager duel.
“Daicos had a fair bit of ball … I think we handled that,” Lyon told reporters after the match.
“We’ll probably go early and look at some of those free kicks. I am not sure they’re free kicks, but I think we’ll take that in and ask the question … Are there two sets of rules going around? I am not sure, am I allowed to say that?
“I think he’s a great player, we know that, a great young player – at the end they get the points and go, ‘It didn’t work’.”
Crisp said the Magpie had not done enough to help Daicos during the King’s Birthday clash with Melbourne, when he received a close tag from Ed Langdon.
“We normally do that stuff. We probably didn’t do it as much to help out Nick last week, especially in the first half,” Crisp said.
“But teams are going to try and take away people’s strengths, and if it’s a close-attention tag, then we’ll try and support him as best we can.”
Asked whether McRae had raised the need to support Daicos after the Melbourne game, Crisp said: “We probably left him out to dry a little bit, maybe in the first half we didn’t support him as much, but in the second half, we did our best.”
