AFL head coach Leigh Matthews has taken aim at his former club Collingwood, accusing the Magpies of poor injury management when it came to handling midfielder Nick Daicos.
The Magpies defended their decision to send Daicos to Brisbane to face the Lions on Thursday night and thus forced him to withdraw with a right leg injury just 15 minutes before the end of the game.
Daicos was not tested for fitness despite dealing with corkie all week. He didn’t look comfortable when he came out for warm-ups with a compression bandage on his calf, nor when he left the field and later returned without a bandage.
His absence was keenly felt in the Magpies’ 54-point loss, exposing the lack of class in his mid-A grade team.
Matthews, the 1990 Magpies head coach, and now a Lions board director, said he could not believe how Daicos was treated.
“He had a strained calf, at the start of the week he wasn’t quite right. They thought he would be fine when it came to pre-match preparations,” Matthews, also the three-time premiership coach of the Lions, said on 3AW on Saturday.
“Why wouldn’t you do things for him to run during the day just to make sure you’re okay, when it happens at the last minute, I don’t think it was a trick, a strategic approach, I think it’s one of the things that surprised Collingwood.
“But I can’t, for the life of me, think how that kind of injury wasn’t tested earlier in the day to find out if he was OK or not because the last-minute changes throw Collingwood off kilter.”
Matthews was on the pitch as part of Fox Footy’s pre-match interview interviewing Magpies coach Craig McRae when the cameras panned to the struggling Daicos.
“If he was a horse, you wouldn’t support him, would you?” McRae laughed at the time, still not sure if Daicos would play.
Matthews, who coached Nick’s famous father Peter in the Magpies’ 1990 premiership side, was baffled by what he saw.
“If he got sick or hurt himself during preparation, that happens all the time with players, we understand that. But this is an injury that was there all week,” Matthews said.
“You’ve got to make sure before you say he’s OK, or he’s not OK. Because his last minute part for me is a huge concern because of Collingwood. I can’t for the life of me understand how that was allowed to happen.”
When contacted on Saturday, the Magpies referred to this headline as McRae’s post-match reaction on Thursday night.
“He had a corkie in his calf. On Tuesday in training, he just wanted to get moving, that was the intention. He had no training and was hobbling around,” McRae said Thursday.
“Nick is the nicest guy, one of the best professionals in the game, let alone at our club, and we gave him every chance to improve. Then he comes out here (to prepare) and we thought he would start to improve. He didn’t.”
Asked if he was suggesting this was mismanagement, Matthews replied: “Well, yes”.
“Just the time, because it seemed like nobody knew. It seemed like it surprised everyone, the coaches, his teammates, Nick, himself, maybe, that it was half an hour before the game – I’m not right – when you should have known that at least earlier in the day,” Matthews said.
“That’s what I’m saying because these things in the last minutes are very disturbing. Let’s be honest, if he’s not there, they will be a weak team, but his timing was very bad.”
The Magpies made another unusual call last week when they left captain Darcy Moore on the field against Greater Western Sydney with a hamstring problem. Moore left the field to be tested in the first quarter, and returned in the second quarter. He played the game, but tests later revealed that the injury was worse than expected and he will miss up to a month.
The debate over Daicos’ injury comes as his pay has emerged as an issue. Although he is under contract until the end of 2029, and is earning $1.1 million this season, according to industry figures who chose to remain anonymous to speak freely, the Tasmanian Devils are rolling.
Daicos could earn more on the open market, and he and his management have yet to open discussions about a pay cut, despite the Magpies having made significant room on their salary cap to pay for him and a free agent.
McRae hopes veteran Scott Pendlebury (Achilles tightness) will also return to face Fremantle in Adelaide on Friday.
