As Nick Daicos walked back in the direction of Collingwood’s goals late last Saturday afternoon, a familiar voice called out to him.

Having just conceded a goal that gave Brisbane a narrow lead with little more than five minutes left, the Pies needed to make something happen to win the game.

With a signal from the bench, Daicos was ready to assume his position in the forward fifty.

Well, that was until Scott Pendlebury had a change of heart.

“Nick was walking out of that at the centre bounce to swap with another player and Pendles goes ‘where are you going’ and he goes ‘well I go and play this role [later on] so I’ll go and play that’”, Collingwood High Performance Manager Jarrod Wade recalls.

“Pendles just had a conversation with him and just said ‘mate do you want to be part of this?’”

So, after taking his place at a centre bounce that he initially didn’t think he would be a part of, Daicos had to switch on.

In the midfield with Pendlebury and Jordan De Goey, the Pies’ star midfielders were left to get to work.

First, it is Daicos who wins the initial clearance with quick hands to his former captain, before following Pendlebury’s inside fifty with an unforgettable midair handball to De Goey who regains the lead.

They’re split-second moments, but moments that very nearly didn’t happen.

And if not for Pendlebury’s nous, whose last quarter will go down in Collingwood history, the outcome could’ve been very different.

“He was on, he’s playing in the midfield, so he knows who he wants in there with him,” Wade says of Pendlebury.

“The fact that he’s thinking what he wanted that fourth quarter to look like, he’s gone to another level psychologically and being locked into the game.

“You see all the pointing, every stoppage and play, he’s talking to everyone, he’s talking to Fly on the bench at a centre bounce.

“They’re all things that he’s been thinking of the whole time and he’s just that locked in that he knew exactly what we needed to do and how the game needed to be played.”

Midfield Coach Hayden Skipworth was full of praise for the 35-year-old’s final quarter too, saying his tactical prowess was crucial, alongside his 11 disposals.

“He just went bananas in the last bit just organising people and not just that, finding the ball and impacting in other ways as well”, Skipworth said.

“We hold up signs, so he knows what faze we’re in, but he knows what structures we’re doing.

“After every goal I’ll normally send the runner out to talk through centre bounce plays or anything like that.

“I send out messages to him through the runner when we kick goals, but he knows what faze of the game we want to be in at any stage.”