This was published 7 years ago
Bombers-of-old Neale Daniher and Kevin Sheedy ham it up for MND
By Larissa Nicholson
"We don't like Hawthorn, us Bombers, do we?" Neale Daniher laughed.
"Dermott Brereton, DiPierdomenico, Matthews, Dunstall, Don Scott, none of them," Kevin Sheedy agreed.
Neale Daniher and Kevin Sheedy ham it up.Credit: Getty Images
This year's ragtag crop of Essendon players had waited for the older men, sprawled on the artificial grass inside their cavernous "hangar" building after training on Thursday morning, most wearing the bright blue beanie of Daniher's Cure For MND Foundation.
They presented him with an oversized cheque for $5000, part of a fundraising campaign to fund motor neurone disease research that will see 10 television presenters and former football players plunged into an icy pool before Melbourne play Collingwood at the MCG on Monday.
Sheedy's phone rang as the group arranged themselves for a photograph.
"Just the prime minister, I'll call back," he quipped, as long-time club doctor Bruce Reid and trainer John 'Killer' Kilby, who last year celebrated 50 years at the club, watched on.
An Essendon player under Sheedy who went on to coach Melbourne, Daniher has been living with the disease since 2013.
During that time his speech has deteriorated, he appears less able to move his hands, but his laconic wit remains unchanged.
The pair played to the cameras - the local iceman would be preparing an extra cold batch for his former coach's ice bath, Daniher said.
"He was my first best and fairest, I made him captain after that and he never played for nine years, so that was a really good decision" Sheedy said.
But he was a beautiful person with a beautiful family, Sheedy added.
"About time you said something nice about me," Daniher said.
The lowly Bombers will play reigning premiers Hawthorn this weekend, in one of their only Friday night matches for the season.
Missing 12 experienced players to a year-long ban, Essendon recently sank to the bottom of the ladder after they were thumped by fellow battlers Fremantle.
Sheedy urged them simply to play their best and enjoy their football.
Ever a promoter of the game, he said halfway through the season, Essendon had 11 golden moments left this year.
Essendon youngster Joe, looking every bit a part of that iconic football clan, stood beside his uncle throughout.
"We're lucky we've got such a big family, we can all bounce off each other and support each other," he said.
Daniher emphasises that scientists are tantalisingly close to finding a treatment for the disease.
Researchers, he says, think that of all the neurological diseases, MND will be the one in which the first breakthrough occurs.
But according to the foundation, every day two people in Australia are diagnosed with MND and two people die.
Daniher said he wanted to give hope to those people who will be diagnosed with MND in years to come, that they will have medical options.
Unspoken is the alternative, the one Daniher faces - an inevitable decline, the body of a once-elite athlete slowly shutting down around him.
There was a treatment that had proven effective in mice and the aim was now to fund clinical trials, he said.
The 55-year-old knows it may be too late to help him.
"I'm really optimistic, every day I wake up and go, maybe they'll announce something today," he said.
"It may not come in my time, but we know we're getting closer."