For those of us old enough to have witnessed his professional sporting career, there are three distinct phases to the Neale Daniher story.
There was Neale Daniher the footballer, the graceful, smooth-moving half-back who could anticipate where he needed to be that split second before everyone else.
There was Neale Daniher the coach, the canny strategist who had a profound impact in his work as an assistant at both Essendon and Fremantle before taking on the senior job at Melbourne and giving the Demons some of their biggest highs since the glory days of the 1950s.
And then, of course, over the last 13 years, an entire country became familiar with Neale Daniher the public face of the fight against motor neurone disease, a tireless advocate for funding into research and treatment of the scourge of "The Beast".
It goes without saying that the reach and the importance of the last phase of Daniher's life dwarfed that of his playing and coaching days, and yet there's a commonality shared by all three eras which underlines arguably his most remarkable quality -- a relentless positivity in spite of whatever circumstances conspired against him.
And Daniher's life was never short of obstacles to overcome.
Take his playing days, for example. Handed over by South Melbourne to Essendon along with older brother Terry in the Swans' pursuit of Bomber star Neville Fields before he'd even arrived in Melbourne from Assumption College, Neale had an immediate impact on the Bombers.
He was a star right from his first game in 1979 against Carlton at Waverley having turned 18 only a month earlier, his cool-headedness and anticipation combined with his ability to negate opposition forwards as well as launch attacking runs from defence making him a half-back almost ahead of his time.
He was the VFL's best first-year player that year, a genuine leader of the team by his second season, and a clear best and fairest winner for the Bombers in 1981.
I was fortunate enough as a young Essendon fan to witness virtually every game he played, and by the time he famously bobbed up near goal to win the Dons an incredible comeback victory over Carlton at Princes Park in Round 20 that season, we weren't the only ones convinced a genuine superstar was emerging. Tragically, though, as a player it would prove virtually his last hurrah.
After 66 consecutive games since his debut, the very next week Daniher would limp from the ground with what at the time seemed only a minor knee injury. But that finished his year. And the next, when he was appointed captain but after re-injuring the knee was forced into a reconstruction and didn't play. Nor 1983 or 1984, when the Dons were grand finalists then premiers.
And when after much blood, sweat and tears to get back Neale finally played another senior game in 1985, the comeback lasted just five games before he again damaged the knee in a mid-week night series game in Adelaide and was forced into a second reconstruction.
That would have been more than enough heartbreak for most players. But while the surgeries and the scars slowed him down, Daniher continued to plug away in search of the sort of VFL career his talents deserved.
Another four years on, he ran out for just his sixth senior appearance in nearly eight years in 1989. And famously, in the final round of 1990 at Moorabbin, joined Terry and younger brothers Anthony and Chris for a record-breaking appearance of four brothers in the same senior line-up.
He'd go on to play in a losing VFA Grand Final for Werribee in 1991 before transitioning to coaching with equal impact as he'd made as a player.
He spent three years with Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy, helping unpick Carlton's midfield set-ups in the famous 1993 Grand Final win. Then was at Fremantle for another three years as the Dockers took their first steps in the AFL.
It was an impressive enough apprenticeship to land him the Melbourne coaching job, where he again excelled, taking the Demons in nine-and-a-half seasons to six finals campaigns and a Grand Final appearance in 2000, where they had the ill-fortune to run into arguably the greatest team of all time, a seasoned Essendon line-up which lost one game of 25 for the year.
That was only one issue Daniher confronted as senior coach. At a club still only two years past a near-merger with Hawthorn, wrangling and internal politics were a constant backdrop to football.
The Demons had just collected the wooden spoon and were financially fragile. And Daniher found himself coaching under the often-eccentric and unpredictable stewardship of president Joe Gutnick, whose colourful reign guaranteed Melbourne was rarely far from drama or distraction.
Yet in typically understated fashion, Daniher almost immediately transformed the mood around the club, his emotional intelligence playing a key role. A long line of Melbourne lesser lights were inspired to career-best heights through the coach's ability to connect, to calm, to encourage and to convince players they were capable of more than they perhaps believed themselves.
Even amid the weekly grind and political instability which so often seemed to accompany Melbourne in that era, Daniher somehow retained both his perspective and his decency.
Which, in hindsight, was the perfect pedigree for someone confronting the insidious and debilitating curse of MND, a disease which progressively robs its victims of their physical abilities while leaving the mind cruelly intact.
Most people confronted with such a diagnosis, which was Daniher's lot in 2013, would have been forgiven for retreating from public life altogether. Daniher instead did precisely the opposite.
There are literally millions of people in this country who didn't know what MND was when Daniher began the last and most important phase of his life. They do now, the "Big Freeze" concept at the annual King's Birthday AFL clash between Melbourne and Collingwood, and the trademark blue beanies becoming a much-loved Australian institution.
The statistics attached to that campaign are staggering. Through FightMND, the Big Freeze and countless fundraising and advocacy initiatives, Daniher helped raise more than $115 million for research and treatment into the disease. But even those numbers alone don't adequately explain his impact.
What resonated so widely about the man who would go on to be Australian of the Year in 2025 was the manner in which he carried himself through the most unimaginable circumstances.
He never allowed the disease to define him emotionally, even as it gradually destroyed him physically. He remained optimistic. Curious. Generous. Funny. Hopeful. Determined to leave the world better than he found it.
Which was the consistent thread across every phase of Neale Daniher's life.
As a footballer, his body repeatedly betrayed him, yet he refused to surrender his love of the game. As a coach, he navigated the pressures and unpredictability of elite sport without losing either his humanity or belief in people. And in the face of a terminal illness, he somehow inspired an entire nation not with anger or bitterness, but with courage, grace and positivity.
There have been more decorated footballers. More successful coaches. But it's difficult to think of too many figures in Australian sport who have left a greater impression on people, or whose influence stretched so far beyond the game itself.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY.