Over the first 52 years of his life, Neale Daniher became well-known and admired as a very good, if injury-prone, VFL footballer who played with his three brothers at Essendon and as a coach at Melbourne.
Over the final 13 years he became far better known and far more admired for his tireless, selfless and passionate campaign to raise awareness of the disease that killed him.
Daniher died on Monday aged 65 from motor neurone disease, an illness he mockingly called ‘The Beast’ and one he defied with good humour and great dignity for as long as he could.
From the time he was diagnosed in 2013, Daniher knew what would happen. MND sufferers generally only live for three to five years after diagnosis.
But he refused to believe that it couldn’t be cured, launching a campaign to raise both awareness of the disease and money to be used to find a cure.
‘The disease will get me, I know,’ Daniher said in one of scores of appearances at football events.
Neale Daniher is pictured in 2024, nine years after he received the shattering news that he had motor neurone disease
The Essendon and Melbourne footy great (pictured with AFL legend Nathan Buckley) dedicated what was left of his life to battling the deadly and incurable condition through his FightMND charity and its annual Big Freeze event
The former Demons coach (pictured with the team in 2004) used a footy saying to express his attitude to life with the disease: ‘We’ll play on, and we’ll keep playing on’
‘But why I do it is that two or three people will die today while I’m talking to you and two or three will die tomorrow and two or three died yesterday.
‘And what drives me is it’s curable. This is curable. I can’t accept that right now there’s no treatment or cure. It mightn’t help me, but what can I do that might make it better for others?’
Adopting a commonplace term in Aussie rules, Daniher declared he would ‘play on’.
‘In football, if you play on, something happens. If you go back, don’t play on, nothing happens.
‘So we’re the same. We’ll play on, and we’ll keep playing on.’
Daniher and his supporters established the charity FightMND to raise what he hoped would amount to a few million dollars for their cause. It has raised many multiples of that.
Even after losing his ability to speak, Daniher still attended the annual fixture between Melbourne and Collingwood with daughter Bec by his side.
A fundraising blue beanie, launched as part of the Big Freeze, is now a footy staple throughout the year – with many punters keen to get their hands on the newest offering each year.
Daniher is pictured at Parliament House in Canberra last year. After his death was announced on Monday, Anthony Albanese said, ‘We all grieve for a great Australian’
Neale (second from left) is pictured with his wife Bec (third from left) and their children Lauren, Luke, Ben and Bec in 2019
One of 11 children, Neale (pictured in 2023) refused to let his charity be named after him
In 2024, the organisation introduced kids’ versions of the beanies due to their popularity.
Daniher never wanted the Fight MND campaign to be about him.
‘It was never going to be called the Neale Daniher Foundation, or anything like that,’ he said.
But without the power of Daniher’s indomitable attitude and his irrepressible good humour, a lot less would have been achieved.
Neale Daniher was born on February 15, 1961, the second of four sons, and one of 11 children, of Jim and Edna Daniher, wheat and sheep farmers near Ungarie in central NSW.
He began his education at St Joseph’s Catholic School at Ungarie then went to St Patrick’s College, Goulburn, before moving to the legendary footballer-producing school, Assumption College at Kilmore in Victoria.
During his school days Daniher played for Ungarie in the Northern Riverina League and later at Assumption, playing his first game for Essendon in 1979 at the age of 18.
In its biographical notes on Daniher, the AFL records, somewhat prophetically, that he was ‘possibly the most naturally gifted, and certainly the unluckiest, of the Daniher brothers’.
Daniher certainly possessed great footballing skills, but required a knee reconstruction in his third season with the Bombers, and two more after that, restricted him to 82 games in his 11 seasons with the club.
Daniher nevertheless accomplished an AFL/VFL first when he and brothers Terry, Anthony and Chris all started for Essendon in the round 22 match of 1990 against St Kilda at Moorabbin.
The four Daniher brothers also played State of Origin together for NSW.
Following his enforced retirement as a player, Daniher had a short stint as assistant coach at Fremantle before his appointment as senior coach at Melbourne where he guided the club through 223 matches, including the 2000 grand final which they lost to an all-conquering Essendon outfit.
After departing Melbourne, Daniher became football operations manager at West Coast, remaining in that role until 2013.
It is, however, for his fight for MND sufferers that he will be remembered.
And for his defiantly accurate prediction: ‘I’m going to be hard to kill.’
