Last Friday I had lunch with The Magician – one of the most gifted players in Australian rules football.

Peter Daicos was the player who made hundreds of thousands of football supporters shake their heads in amazement as he kicked goals from near-impossible angles.

A veteran of 250 senior games with Collingwood, he kicked 549 goals in a career which started as a 15-year-old from the Melbourne working class suburb of Preston.

Last Friday was his first visit to Noosa ... and Daicos wondered why he hadn’t been earlier. Still very fit, he spoke a lot about personal development and working as a team. A lot about how to deal with the hand that life deals you.
He admitted he missed the thrill of the game. “No two days go by without missing it,’’ he told the Noosa Tigers football supporters and guests at the Ivory Bar. “I made a lot of friends.’’

Yet Daicos is the first to admit he has had his time in football and now loves the anonymity. This is despite the fact he coaches junior football.

“Kids,’’ he said, “they can lift you so high … yet they can also cut you down. I have even umpired and some of the Under 10s asked me if I know anything about football.’’

Things that stand out in his memory about his time in the game include going down to the grounds, being selected in the senior squad.

He remembers what his father had always said: “Look and learn, listen and learn.’’

The arrival of Leigh Matthews as coach at Collingwood in 1986 was the start of the team’s march towards the 1990 premiership ... the first for the club in 32 years. It wasn’t the best Collingwood team but everyone contributed in the final.

“You have to know more about your own team mates than you do about opposition players,’’ Daicos said. “You have to know their habits, what they are going to do.’’

He talked about the courage of the late Darren Millane, who played in the 1990 grand final but died a year and a day later while driving home late from a nightclub.

“There was a lot written about him after he was killed,’’ Daicos said, “but few knew the real Darren Millane. He would go out and speak at institutions and try to get them interested as a way of changing their lives. Before sporting memorabilia became popular he used to get jumpers and socks off us, and give them out at the children’s hospital.

“Darren Millane? What did it mean? More than kicking leather around. We lost something from our lives. As a person, you can never replace someone like that.’’