Nick Daicos was again outstanding for Collingwood in their win over St Kilda – but the tagging tactics of Saints stopper Marcus Windhager to attempt to quell his influence has caused a stir.
Daicos finished with 30 disposals, five clearances and a crucial final-quarter goal that broke the back of the Saints’ resistance, with the Pies running away with a 34-point win to cement their place atop the AFL ladder.
However, the Brownlow Medal fancy did it despite being worn like a second skin by Windhager throughout the night, with the tagger regularly resorting to questionable methods to put him off his game.
Vision broadcast by Fox Footy after the match showed Windhager repeatedly hitting Daicos off the ball, as well as appearing to pinch him, while in one instance, he kneed Daicos in the back of the hamstring at a stoppage.
Speaking on Fox, former player David King said the Saint went ‘a step too far’ with his tactics, and questioned why the umpires, who paid Daicos just two free kicks in contests with Windhager throughout the night, weren’t watching the pair more closely.
“I think that’s too far … taggers do anything to get under the skin,” King said of the kneeing in particular.
“It’s a no-go for me. I think that’s outside the code. If that’s gone on more than what we’re looking at now, if that’s happened 15-20 times, I expect a phone call from the AFL.
“We’ve got to look after our star factor players. The game owes these players some form of protection.
“The umpires did take a stand early – they paid a free kick for a punch in the stomach 30 seconds into the game. I thought ‘Perfect. Craig McRae’s had a big win here’. It didn’t pan out that way.
“I marvel at what these star factor players are able to do, but the game has to let them ply their trade. We just can’t have taggers getting on top of ball-winners in terms of their ability to compete.
“We’ve got four umpires, and I know there’s a lot happening in the game. A lot happens around this guy. You don’t have to take your eyes far from the ball to see what is happening to Nick. So anytime you see anything like this, it’s a free kick straightaway.
“He’s basically been given two free kicks tonight via this battle, head to head. He ended up with four for the night – so two that are not related to this at all. That’s not enough for me.”
King said a tagging crackdown would be beneficial across the competition, saying the matter was ‘not a Nick Daicos discussion’.
“Before people jump up and down and say ‘oh, this happened to Nick, it’s a Collingwood thing’, it’s not. It’s across the comp. It’s anyone,” he said.
“It’s Matt Rowell, it’s Marcus Bontempelli, it’s Ed Richards. It’s whoever you want to nominate.
“We’ve had times or periods over the last decade where we’ve tried to stamp some of these things out and haven’t followed through. They paid a free kick 30 seconds into the game, and then, I think, lost sight of what was going on.”
Co-panellist and former great Jack Riewoldt believes the tactics were designed to irritate the Magpies star, and early in the match, it had the desired effect, with Daicos giving away an early free kick to Windhager for rough conduct at a stoppage.
“It clearly got under his skin early on – he wanted to be physical towards Windhager, he gave away a couple of free kicks to try and insert his dominance physically as well,” Riewoldt said.
“If you’ve got a stopper, they push the boundaries, and sometimes they go over them. Clearly a couple of the things we’ve seen tonight, Marcus Windhager’s probably gone against the grain of the game.”
Herald Sun chief football writer Jay Clark, meanwhile, believes the league could quickly crack down on such incidents with a ‘memo’ to all 18 clubs that ‘just says ‘look, we saw this on the weekend, bit of pinching bit of kneeing. Just want to let you know that if it happens again, then we will go down the sanction path, or we will be watching it for more free kicks’.
“I think this is really easily and quickly nipped in the bud,” he added.
However, when shown the incidents by King during a post-match interview, Magpies coach Craig McRae was more diplomatic, merely praising Daicos for his efforts in breaking the tag.
“The job of the tagger is to disrupt, isn’t it? That’s his job, and he’s doing that within the rules, I suppose, if they don’t pick it up,” he said on Fox Footy.
“I’m probably not going to comment on the kneeing and things like that, that’s obviously up to others to decide whether that’s a bit too far.
“I just love how Nick just got on with it tonight. One of the big things with being a tagger is actually ‘let’s see if they can go with you’. Some weeks they can run with you, some things they can’t. Again tonight, I thought Nick won that battle.”
In his post-match media conference, Saints coach Ross Lyon questioned the extent of the off-the-ball free kicks handed to Daicos in particular, who received four frees for the night, suggesting a double standard may have been at play.
“They both had their moments – Daicos had a fair bit of ball,” Lyon said.
“I know we’ll probably go early, look at a couple of those free kicks, I’m not sure they were free kicks.
“But I think we’ll take that in and ask the question, are there two sets of rules going around? I’m not sure.”
Windhager has quickly become one of the AFL’s most effective taggers; in the Saints last two games, he has restricted Melbourne star Kysaiah Pickett to just 12 disposals and no goals – while collecting 28 touches himself – and help Western Bulldogs captain Marcus Bontempelli to only 14 disposals in a heavy Saints loss.
The latter performance earned him a Coaches Association vote from the match, the only Saint to poll.
