Peter Moore lost four grand finals. He played in a draw. He did not get his hands on that elusive premiership cup.
Until he stood on the dais at the age of 66 and handed the premiership cup to his son, the Collingwood skipper Darcy Moore.
When the moment came Peter buttoned up his suit jacket, walked to his son, hugged him and handed the cup over to Moore and coach Craig McRae. Forty-two years had elapsed since Moore had walked from the same patch of turf having thrown the runners-up medal into the turf.
A grand final with Moore: Collingwood skipper Darcy Moore with his famous father.Credit: AFL Photos / Getty Images
Throughout Peter had been dignified, fading into the background most of the time and letting his son walk his own path. He saw him upset as he wondered what might have been when the Magpies chose not to take the risk in 2018 and play him. On that occasion, the Magpies lost by five points.
His son, the most measured of players, stood in the rooms, hugging family and friends as he was asked whether the pair would sit back and say ‘a Moore has won a premiership’.
“Maybe tomorrow,” Darcy said.
“It’s not just Dad but all those players he played with in the ’70s and ’80s who are heartbroken, lost so many grand finals and all the fans who still come up to me and say they were heartbroken through that era, it’s ... I’ve finally done something he hasn’t.”
He wasn’t only father-son in the room. Peter Daicos headed in before his boys, the remarkable Nick, a premiership player in his second season and Josh, the man who was added to the list late but never stopped working towards his goal of cementing his place in the team and then becoming a premiership player.
Premiership connection: Nick Daicos with his father Peter Daicos.Credit: AFL Photos / Getty Images
Peter had kicked Collingwood’s first goal in the 1990 grand final.
His son Nick went one better. He kicked the opening goal of the 2023 grand final.
Now all three were Collingwood premiership players.
“It’s an unbreakable bond those boys will have, an unbreakable bond,” Peter, who kicked 97 goals in 1990 to be a Collingwood hero, said.
“No-one can take that away from them. All that hard work, all the grafting, all the aches and pains. That all falls away now.”
Nick ended the match with 29 disposals, three more than any other player on the ground. However, it was his swerve and baulk and kick to Will Hoskin-Elliott inside the final minute of the first half that saw the ball lob in Jack Crisp hands. Crisp kicked the goal after the siren to give the Magpies a lead of just one goal at half-time.
Collingwood kicked a goal after the siren in each of the first two quarters, vital moments in a game decided by just four behinds.
Josh had 17 touches, gaining 468 metres and welding his name between Peter and Nick as an All-Australian wingman in a premiership year. His dad said Josh was without nerves and fresh when he spoke to him on the morning of the match, an assessment the 24-year-old agreed with.
“We’re going to cherish it,” Josh said.
The father-son rule has etched the Moore and Daicos name in Collingwood’s annals, as Heath Shaw did for his father Ray in 2010, forever premiership heroes.
