Collingwood superstar Nick Daicos is only three years into his AFL career, but already appears to have one eye on the future.
Daicos has taken the competition by storm in his 48 games to quickly become one of the best players in the AFL.
He won the Rising Star award in his first year and narrowly missed out on the Brownlow Medal last year after injury robbed him of a chance to poll in the final three rounds.
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The 21-year-old returned for the finals to play a key role in Collingwood’s premiership triumph.
He began this year in fine touch with 34 disposals and a goal against the GWS Giants on Saturday night, but the Magpies fell to a disappointing defeat.
On Monday, Daicos was unveiled as the new coach of the Team NAB AFL Auskick for 2024 and will join the leadership team alongside AFLW star Katie Brennan.
Daicos will be on the lookout for the next crop of Auskickers who will be lucky enough to present this year’s grand final medals.
“It’s something I want to put a lot of energy into them and make sure that hopefully one day they can live out their dreams and sort of be doing what I’m doing now,” Daicos told 7NEWS.
“It’s super important. I was fortunate enough to have great role models growing up since arriving at the club so I hope we can continue that on and pass on great skills and knowledge to the kids coming through and make sure they’re prepared for their footy journey.”
But coaching kids might just be the start of something bigger down the track for Daicos, who coached volleyball in his high school years.
“It’s definitely a pathway I want to go down further in my career, love the game of footy so coaching is something I aspire to do down the track,” Daicos added.
More immediately, Daicos will be focused on bouncing back from last week’s loss to the Giants against Sydney on Friday night at the MCG.
“We’ll get to work and then Friday coming up is a great opportunity to start again at the MCG,” Daicos said.
“Fly’s (coach Craig McRae) mentality’s always been to be a winner and regardless of what the scoreboard we want to play right until the last second … we were able to do that (against GWS) and we’ll take lots of learnings into this Friday’s game.
Jeremy Howe remains in doubt for the clash as he continues to struggle with a calf injury.
“I know he did another training session today and he’s moving really well to hopefully be close,” Daicos said.