Daicos is considered one of Collingwood's greatest ever players thanks to his brilliant 549-goal, 15-year career that earned him entry into the Australian Football Hall of Fame. His honours include the 1990 AFL premiership with Collingwood, and the 1991 Goal of the Year. He also represented his home state of Victoria a total of five times.
Daicos debuted with the Collingwood Football Club in Round 4, 1979, against St Kilda, in what was, at the time, the largest winning margin in VFL/AFL history (179 points).[1] He went on to play 250 games (for 549 goals) with the Magpies until his retirement in 1993, and he won a premiership with them in 1990; he kicked Collingwood's first goal in that match.
In the 1990 season, Daicos scored 97 goals playing mostly from the forward pocket, a feat made all the more remarkable because he was considerably shorter than many full-forwards of the era and was not playing in the traditional position of a spearhead full-forward. His skills in scoring from seemingly impossible angles, as well as his ability to get rid of defenders, led pundits to start naming him 'The Magician'.
In fact, one of his goals, which drew the 1990 Qualifying Final, became the subject of a Toyota Memorable Moments advertisement, first screened in 2005.[2]
Post-playing career
In 2005, Daicos became coach at local club Greythorn Falcons, and in 2006 coached them to an 80-point win in the Grand Final.[3]
In 2007, Daicos launched SportzStats,[4] a hybrid online/offline sports statistics tracking and diary system for junior players in various sports.
In 2010, Daicos resumed commentating duties with the AFL Live radio team.[5]
Personal life
Peter Daicos is commonly known as the 'Macedonian Marvel' as a result of his ethnic Macedonian ancestry.[6][7]
His eldest son, Josh, was drafted to Collingwood with pick 57 in the 2016 national draft under the father–son rule.[9] Another son, Nick, was also recruited through the father–son rule by Collingwood, selected with pick 4 in the 2021 national draft after the Gold Coast Suns’ bid was matched by the Magpies. Both Daicos brothers played for the Oakleigh Chargers in the TAC Cup in their draft years, and are AFL premiers, having won with Collingwood in 2023.
In 1999, Daicos was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame. In 2002, he was selected in the AFL Greek Team of the Century,[11] a team reserved for players having full or partial Greek heritage; despite Daicos being an ethnic Macedonian, his family hometown is in Greece and was thus eligible for inclusion.[12]
Nowadays, his name is regularly used by journalists, commentators, and Australian football fans as an adjective to describe a difficult goal scored from the boundary in play, especially one that is dribbled along the ground in a controlled manner; such feats may be referred to as a 'Daicos-style goal'.[13]
Daicos' son Josh was awarded Goal of the Year in 2020 for his single-handed effort from the boundary in round 10 to seal a victory against Sydney in a style reminiscent of the elder Daicos' snap goals.[14]
Victoria 16.12 (108) defeated South Australia 16.8 (104), at Football Park, 15 May 1984
Western Australia 21.16 (142) defeated Victoria 21.12 (138), at Subiaco Oval, 17 July 1984
New South Wales 13.8 (86) defeated Victoria 10.16 (76), at the SCG, 22 May 1990
Victoria 14.13 (97) defeated Western Australia 8.12 (60), at the WACA Ground, 26 June 1990
