St Kilda coach Ross Lyon has questioned the officiating of Collingwood star Nick Daicos following his starring role in the Pies' 34-point victory over St Kilda on Saturday night at Marvel Stadium.
Daicos was tagged by Saints youngster Marcus Windhager throughout the night, but still finished with 30 disposals and nine score involvements, but it was the equal game-high four free kicks that Lyon queried.
"I think they both had their moments," Lyon said of the matchup.
"I think Daicos had a fair bit of ball, more entries, he moved around, I think we handled that.
"We'll probably go early and look at 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?
"But I think he's a great player, a great young player, we know that, and at the end they get the points and go, it didn't workโฆI like the theatre of it; there was a lot of noise.
"I think it's great for the game.
"I loved (Windhager's) spirit: stress under load equals growth, I'm sure he was stressed playing on a great player against an incredibly experienced team."
The matchup was the talking point all week, and Daicos โ as he so often does โ had the crowning moment.
The Pies Brownlow hopeful kicked effectively the match-sealing goal, a quick snap from 40, putting the Magpies up by 16 points midway through the fourth term against a gritty St Kilda outfit.
And if Daicos' stunning goal wasn't the match-winner, the Pies vice-captain set up another major to Brody Mihocek a minute later to slam the door shut for St Kilda.
Coming off a game where he was well held by Melbourne running machine Ed Langdon, and was set to come up against arguably the competition's best tagger, Marcus Windhager, who last week quelled Marcus Bontempelli, the battle formed the undercurrent of a well-fought match.
It was on from the first bounce.
Daicos received a free kick at the first centre stoppage after Pies coach Craig McRae questioned whether he was adjudicated fairly early in Collingwood's previous match against Melbourne.
Both supporter bases got involved when either player went near the footy.
Scott Pendlebury put body contact on Windhager when he tried to come to the bench in the first quarter, reflecting coach Craig McRae's consistent theme throughout 2025 of needing to protect the Brownlow Medal hopeful from the competition's stoppers.
That support for Daicos was forthcoming throughout the entire contest.
Daicos received two frees in the first quarter, while also giving two away as the pair split the battle, before Daicos' clearance-winning running power and spread underlined a big second quarter to get him up to 15 disposals and three clearances at the main break.
The Pies maestro finished with 30 disposals, five clearances, nine score-involvements and a game-high nine intercepts.
As well as nullifying Daicos in periods, Windhager impacted in some offensive phases, with 15 disposals and five clearances of his own.
Pies coach Craig McRae indicated it's the best the team has handled a Daicos tag.
"There was always going to be cameras on it," McRae said.
"The spotlight was on it.
"I just said to Nick when he came off at the first break, we don't want him to fight the battles, we'll fight it for him and as a group, as a team, we want to look after him, we don't want him sitting there thinking he's fighting his own battles.
"So I thought tonight as a collective, Nick's had 30 possessions, so some will say his performance was pretty impactful, and the way we looked after Nick, I was more proud of than the way we have in recent times."
INJURIES
Both teams have injury concerns coming out of the night, with Mattaes Phillipou a very late exclusion for St Kilda with calf soreness for Ryan Byrnes, who was a carryover emergency.
Phillipou has played just four games in 2025 as he has battled a range of injuries, most recently a ruptured plataris tendon which again flared up.
"He was okay, we thought he'd get back a week earlier and trained fully, our sports scientists were a bit concerned he could do a soft tissue injury after (his stint on the sidelines), and he was meant to play.
"So he was in the warm upโฆeverything was smooth and then I got a call from (EGM Football) David Misson (that) Mattaes is sore down around that part of his leg.
"Not dramatically but he was pretty upset with it and we said โno worries, no problem' so I got on the phone and said โmate, don't worry about it, you're fine, don't get too upset, let's just get you right' and then we had a discussion (about) whether to go Tobie or Byrnes (in the starting lineup) and โRonnie' just gave us that flexibility that Mattaes gave us."
Meanwhile, Collingwood was forced to activate its substitute at quarter time, with Beau McCreery sitting out the rest of the game with hamstring awareness.
"He'll get scans tomorrow," McRae said post-game.
"(The) likelihood (is) there will be some form of a hamstring strain, we're thinking on the minor end, that's doctors saying minor end and Beau saying minor end - he did a pretty bad one last year so there's an awareness there so well just have to wait."
It follows a major hamstring injury last year for the 24-year-old premiership player who had a lively start with two centre clearances, as he hunts more midfield minutes.
FLYING VIKING DEBUT
Teenager Alix Tauru showed some pleasing signs in his first game of AFL for St Kilda.
The 10th selection in the 2024 AFL Draft became the Saints' seventh debutante on Saturday night in front a massive contingent of Warragul Industrials junior teammates dressed in Viking hats.
The interceptor finished with nine disposals, six marks and six spoils.
"(There was) a bit to like,โ Lyon said.
โWe like that he's a simple player who does the simple things well.
โI thought he was tough, head over the ball, launched.
โI think he can only get better from here.
โHe's a very athletic young player, come off a low base still, coming off a past defect and hardly doing a pre-seasonโฆso there was a bit to like, another debutante.โ
DARCY CAMERON DOMINANCE
Collingwood ruck Darcy Cameron has become renowned as the best intercept marking ruck in the league across the last 12 months but it was at the other end that he was doing the early damage.
The 2024 All Australis squad member kicked the Pies first two goals of the game and got on top of St Kilda's Rowan Marshall in the ruck from the get-go, with his ability to push forward most damaging.
He finished with 19 disposals, eight marks, including two intercept marks, six clearances and 28 hitouts against Marshall's 20, two, four and 32.
"His marking the ball inside 50 was enormous," McRae said.
"He's important to us behind the ball, he's been intercepting the ball but tonight he went forward more and challenged the Saints (when) a part of our game coming in, we thought playing the Saints in recent times and watching them, they do get numbers back to make it hard to score and we had to sit in that.
"The second quarter in particular was a difficult quarter to get fluency in ball movement but we knew it was coming, and I thought the way we handled it tonight is the best we've done that.
"18 marks inside 50 is a representation of the way we moved the ball forward at times."
ST KILDA RESPOND
After an ugly 72-point demolition at the hands of Western Bulldogs in round 14, St Kilda has bounced back well with a gallant performance against Collingwood.
St Kilda was within 10 points of the premiership favourites early in the fourth quarter before the Pies kicked away.
They won contested possessions by 21, clearances by seven and were able to stymie parts of Collingwood's game, particularly in the 15 minutes either side of halftime.
After beating Melbourne a fortnight ago in a way Lyon dubbed as unsustainable, the coach thought there was plenty to take out of Saturday's game that can hold them in good stead.
"I think anyone who watched the game thought we were well in the game," Lyon said.
"I think they thought we were well in the game.
"They moved around a lot of players, tried to isolate (Alix) Tauru deep, moved (Nick) Daicos around, so I think we took a step forward with our mindset and our approach to attacking the game and energy and fight, so that was really pleasing.
"I thought we saw a lot of good stuff in our system, we took a fair bit of their system away from them and at three-quarter time, we were really optimistic we'd go ahead and get it done.
"We just had two quarters, the second quarter and the fourth quarter, where we turned it over.
"We know they're a good pressing team and pressure team, butโฆhow much of it was their good pressure and how much of it was our decision and system? And they moved back and scored. That's where most of their turnovers came from."
