AFL legend Neale Daniher dies aged 65
Former AFL footballer, Australian of the Year and motor neurone disease campaigner Neale Daniher has died at the age of 65, News.Az reports, citing ABC.
His family confirmed his death on Monday.
Daniher played 82 games for Essendon over 11 years of an injury-plagued AFL/VFL career from 1979 to 1990.
He also coached Melbourne Football Club for more than 220 games from 1998 to 2007.
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He was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) in 2013 and dedicated his later years to raising awareness of the disease and fundraising for research.
Daniher was named Victorian of the Year in 2019 and Australian of the Year in 2025.
Daniher was born in West Wyalong, in New South Wales, in 1961and played Australian rules football, rugby union and rugby league as a schoolboy.
His older brother, Terry Daniher — one of four Daniher brothers who would play in the AFL or VFL — was already contracted to Essendon when Neale joined the club in 1979.
Daniher showed signs of being a star in the making, playing 23 games as a halfback flanker and kicking nine goals in his first season with the Bombers.
He was named the league's Recruit of the Year and appeared destined for stardom in the game.
He was again a fixture in the side in the 1980 and 1981 seasons, earning a place in the New South Wales representative side and winning Essendon's Best and Fairest in 1981.
At the end of the 1981 season, Daniher suffered a knee injury he thought was minor until doctors revealed he had ruptured a cruciate ligament and would require a full knee reconstruction.
His selection as club captain ahead of the 1982 season was historic for two reasons: he was the youngest player ever picked in the role and he would also become the only club captain never to lead his team onto the field.
Daniher's knee injury turned out to be even worse than the club had feared and he spent the next three years on the sidelines before making his comeback in 1985.
However, just five games into the season, he seriously injured his knee again, requiring another reconstruction.
A second comeback in 1987 ended the same way, with Daniher going under the surgeon's knife for a third time.
Daniher handled each injury setback in typical fashion, dealing with the disappointment quickly and quietly before applying himself to getting back on the field.
Speaking to the ABC's Drew Morphett ahead of his comeback game in 1985, he said he would have given the game away if it wasn't for the support and encouragement of his brothers.
He played just a handful of games in the league's top tier in his final season in 1990, but one of them happened to be in an Essendon side that included his three football-playing siblings.
He stopped short of saying the four had a telepathic connection on the field, but admitted they weren't just regular teammates.
"You don't tend to look out for each other, you just have a sense of where your brothers are," he told Andrew Denton on the ABC's Live and Sweaty program in 1991.
"I remember last year we played against St Kilda and I'd been struggling in the reserves and I got a game and they all looked after me pretty well that day."
By Nijat Babayev
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