Former Melbourne coach and MND crusader Neale Daniher says Demons can win flag from fifth
HE was the last man to coach Melbourne in a final and much-loved MND crusader Neale Daniher believes his club can claim its first premiership since 1964 as it prepares to take on Geelong on Friday night.
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NEALE Daniher knows it’s not about him.
This is not his team or his players.
He doesn’t even want to talk about himself and his involvement with Melbourne, where he coached from 1998-07.
But when the TV cameras zoomed in under the MCG member’s grandstand late in the final quarter of the Round 23 match against Greater Western Sydney, and he was standing and smiling alongside his guest for the day, former player Simon Godfrey, a small part of it was about Neale Daniher.
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“I was sitting with Simon ... a dirty rotten tagger,” Daniher said, breaking into laughter.
“The people sitting in front of me who I didn’t know turned around and said they were on TV.”
We know Daniher’s plight. He has MND and slowly and surely his body is breaking down. He had not been seen in public since the Freeze at the ‘G and so debilitating and life-strangling is Daniher’s disease, no one really knew when or if they’d see Daniher again.
But there he was, wrapped in a Melbourne scarf and smiling and cheerful.
It resonated, not only with Melbourne fans, but all footy fans.
Finals is a happy place and if it can make Daniher happy, well, that’s a bloody good bonus.
“I feel a lot of support, no doubt,” he said.
“It’s been incredible.
“One of the lonely things about having a terminal illness is you can feel alone, but I don’t feel alone. I feel the love. I do.
“It moves you away from the loneliness of the disease.”
In that moment, under the grandstand, Daniher symbolised the grim journey from Melbourne’s previous final to this one.
“I’m really rapt Melbourne is back in September,” he said.
“I feel I’ve got a real empathy for where they’ve been, what they’ve gone through and I feel the excitement.
“Anything’s possible and it has been a long wait since 1964.
“The Bulldogs and Richmond gives everyone hope.
“You now, you can win them from fifth.”
The crumbling body envelops Daniher’s sharp mind, which is one of the torments of MND, but he still knows his footy.
Although footy remains an emotional thread in Daniher’s life, the fight for survival and the fight to raise funds to help find a cure for MND mostly occupies Daniher’s mind.
“In the context of a bigger wider world of mine, football is a small element of it all,” he said.
“I talk on behalf of me, it’s a small element.
“There’s a lot more important things happening in the world.
“I can’t give you that line that football is central to my mind at the moment.
“But I understand the battle, everything that goes into getting where they’ve got to, all the heartache, all the disappointment, all the criticism — they even got criticism for celebrating too much.
“In that context, I’m really happy for (coach) Simon Goodwin, (president) Glenn Bartlett and Jacko (outgoing cheif executive Peter Jackson), all the players, especially Jonesy (captain Nathan Jones).
“The game is giving them back a bit of love.”
Still, it was Daniher who coached Melbourne to their last finals series — in 2006 — so in that context, his legacy emerges as Melbourne emerges.
“Our last final at the MCG was 2006, a winning final. We beat (Grant) Thomas’ St Kilda,’’ he said.
The Demons won by 18 points and “then we got beat over at Freo”.
In 2005, they made September in a rollicking campaign that saw them 9-3 at Round 12, before they lost seven in a row.
They needed to win their last three matches to qualify for September and they did — by one, four and 10 points.
They met Geelong in the elimination finals, as they will again on Friday night, and were belted by 55 points.
“It was pretty exciting at the end. I can remember all the journos writing me off,’’ he laughed.
“You were all coming at me. I remember we beat Geelong at Geelong by one point (Round 20).”
FATHER FIGURE
CLASPING a cup of tea in the Hilton Hotel, with daughter Bec beside him, Daniher says he doesn’t miss the cut and thrust of coaching.
“Not really. I had a great time and you move on and there’s a lot of other things to enjoy in life,” he said.
“I did it for 10 years at Melbourne and, as you know, it wasn’t a bed of roses.
“We played in six finals series from nine — that’s not bad. We had a good bunch of lads ... it was good times.”
He admitted football was his life, maybe even more important, and certainly more consuming than his family.
On this day, which was the launch of the Daniher Drive at the MCG, Bec remembered dad the coach and not dad the dad.
“We were always excited when they won because we knew we had a happy dad in the household rather than a grumpy one,’’ Bec said.
Was football ahead of his family?
Bec: “No comment.”
Daniher laughed again.
Former players David Neitz, Daniel Ward and Russell Robertson were at the launch and it was clear how big a footprint Daniher had left on them.
Neitz missed the Geelong final in 2005 because of a broken leg.
“I went to Chinatown for special treatment,” Neitz said.
“I went to to a witch doctor. I felt good about myself. I ran OK, I could bear the pain of running.
“We trained at the MCG and I had to kick a footy. The pain which went through from the top of my head to my toes, was excruciating. I couldn’t come up.”
Daniher: “Weak ...”
Ward wasn’t selected.
“From about 2004 and 2005 onwards, he got pretty harsh on me,” Ward recalled.
Daniher: “I lost my way as a coach.”
Robertson pointed at Neitz: “He didn’t play. I was full-forward. I loved it when Neita didn’t play. I played on Scarlett that day.”
“He and I had a real healthy respect for each other. I was able to run around a bit and shake him loose a couple of times and kick some goals (four, in fact),” Robertson said.
“I look back I have so much respect for how he was able to facilitate all of us.
“We were at the Junction Oval then, portable meeting room, the air conditioning wasn’t working.
“Juddy (Chris Judd) walked into Junction Oval and turned around and straight back out and down to Visy Park. He didn’t stay long.”
Robertson described Daniher as a father figure.
“I needed Neale, we all did,” he said.
“He was able to read us. He was a great philosopher of all our minds and father figure to a lot of us.
“He used to famously say to me, there’s Russell who works his butt off to make it, and then there’s the Robbo who likes to kick a goal and take a hanger in front of the members.
“He said, ‘you play your best football somewhere in between and I’ll keep you in the team’.
“He’d tell ya and you have to respect him.
“I know the old 1950s boys talk about Norm Smith the same way. They just respected him and they also hated him at times
“With hindsight, you look back and think, ‘wow, gee he was great’.
“He was the perfect mix, from the bush, had a touch of Sheedy in him, and he brought it all together and changed the Melbourne Football Club.
“I reckon he put us back on the map.”
BACK AT THE ‘G
DANIHER will be at the MCG on Friday night and last week was clamouring for tickets to take most of his brood.
“We’ve loved this year,” Bec said.
“It’s always exciting to watch Melbourne play well.
“Dad loves footy, he loves Melbourne and I’m sure it is love.
“He’s been part of the Melbourne Football Club for a number of years and they’re part of our family.”
Daniher will get an Uber to the MCG, which is his transportation of choice, get dropped off in Jolimont Terrace, and trek to the gate written on his ticket.
It’s impossible for him to avoid the well-wishers, although he says the Demons fans weren’t always so positive.
“I keep my head down and if they say anything they are always very supportive, but I’m not running around high-fiving everyone,” he said, laughing again.
“People bail me up and take a selfie, say ‘go Dees’ or ‘good on ya Neale’, which is a bit better than what happened way back in ‘05 and ‘06 — ‘hey Daniher, when are they going to sack ya?’’’
Asked whether he missed anything about football, Daniher shook his head.
“You can’t look back, you have to look forward,” he said.
“What’s the use looking back.
“They were great days and guess what, there’s great days ahead.
“The only ones you are going to live are the ones now and the ones ahead.
“They’re great memories, you cherish them but move on. It’s about the boys this week, it’s their time.”
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