Brisbane coach Chris Fagan has teased a potential tag to go on Collingwood star Nick Daicos after the Magpie ran amok against Sydney in Gather Round.
Dacios' arguably best-on-ground display continued a hot stretch of form to begin the 2025 season, with the son of a gun averaging near-identical figures to the ones that earned him a record 38 Brownlow votes last year.
Fagan said he and the selection panel will consider running a tag on Daicos despite his ability to shake off James Jordon last week. Winger Jarrod Berry played a crucial tagging role in multiple games in 2024.
"(You can plan for Daicos) as much or as little as you like I suppose, you could spend hours on him. He's in great form," Fagan said.
"We'll try some things tomorrow night to quell his influence; whether that's with a tag or not, I'm not 100% sure on that yet.
"Whatever you do, you've got to go in with a plan to try and minimise the effect or influence that he can have on the game. There's a lot of other good players too, though, so you can't get caught up just in that."
The undefeated Lions' biggest challenge since tackling last year's preliminary finalists and runners-up approaches the club on Thursday night, with Collingwood closely behind, holding a 4-1 record.
The comeback kings of the AFL, Brisbane, will be hoping to find themselves ahead at halftime this week as they take on a Collingwood side bolstered with a likely star inclusion to boot with their in-form midfield.
Fagan admitted that the first-half slumps were an annoying trend but stated he wasn't concerned by it and hasn't addressed it closely with the playing group and equally, will not pay significant specific attention to Collingwood's Jordan De Goey, who is set to return this week.
"The first half's become the issue for us because we've been behind at halftime... Contested ball has probably been down in the first half of games, and our work rate. So we've just got to get that better," Fagan said.
"It's not like we're not good at that. We're actually really good at it. We just haven't done it as well in the first half for some reason or other.
"(De Goey's) a great player. So we'll wait and see what happens with selection tonight, but they've got a number of players that you need to concern yourself with.
"I don't think he's played a lot of football this year, so we probably focus on the blokes who have played a lot of football and give him the respect that he deserves, but don't go overboard with our planning there."
Fagan also threw his support behind veteran recruit Sam Day. While Brisbane's forward line has been gelling smoothly so far with Joe Daniher, Day has yet to hit the scoreboard with a goal, although Fagan isn't concerned about what statistics suggest.
"You look at numbers, I look at actions and things that happen out in the field, and what he does to help others, and how he helps our system and stuff like that," Fagan said.
"I'm happy with what he's doing. Yeah, I would have liked him to kick a goal or two; that'll come. I'm not too fussed about that.
"We're kicking pretty decent scores each week, so it's not like our forward line's not functioning. I think we're averaging high-90 points per game, so we'll just keep assessing as we go along, but he needs to be given a bit of time to fit into our system.
"It's not like he can walk in and suddenly 'you're the man'; that takes a little bit of time. Like last week, some of the things that he was doing was allowing Eric Hipwood to get off the chain.
"We'll back Sam in."
