Neale Daniher sings Mr Brightside as Daniher Drive raises $3 million for FightMND

JACK Riewoldt, eat your heart out. Neale Daniher has taken to the stage to celebrate Daniher Drive raising $3 million for FightMND by belting out The Killers classic Mr Brightside. WATCH

EIGHT days ago he was emulating Richmond star Jack Riewoldt and belting out Mr Brightside, 40 years earlier he was a prolific left-handed batsman for Assumption College, one some thought had the tools to go all the way.

We speak of the one and only Neale Daniher, a man who fits every criteria if looking for a National Treasure.

His enthusiastic rendition of Mr Brightside was the culmination of this year’s Daniher Drive in Geelong which finished last weekend and raised close to $3 million for a cause that is fast closing in on $50 million.

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A Demon through and through, Neale Daniher is a crusader for finding a cure for MND. Picture: Getty Images

The Daniher Drive naturally enough took it out of the great man, but he will be front and square when his former school Assumption College holds a gala dinner at Palladium at Crown next Saturday (October 27).

And you can take it for a given that Daniher will be part of the Assumption team, his former coach Ray Carroll regarding him as the equal best to have passed through the school along with a former ICC Cricketer of the Year in Simon O’Donnell.

“I have no doubt he had the talent to play Test cricket had he chosen that path,” Carroll said.

And then there’s the view of O’Donnell: “Neale played cricket in the same manner he played football in that he seemed to have all the time in the world, and in cricket that’s what separates the very good from the good.

Neale Daniher greeted people at Vansittart Park in Mount Gambier during the Daniher Drive. Picture: Supplied

“Would he have played Test cricket? I can’t answer that definitively because it’s a sport where you never know until someone goes to the next level, but it wouldn’t have surprised me from what I saw in the year we played together when I was a couple of years younger in Year 10.”

For the final word let’s go to his former schoolmate and close friend in Peter MacLeod: “I can confidently say he was a better cricketer than footballer.”

“I saw him in Year 11 as an opening batsman against Ivanhoe Grammar in 1977 when he made 157 not out and you can’t imagine a schoolboy playing better.

“The next year he made another century against Ivanhoe Grammar, prompting their coach to say, ‘Not you again.’”