Melbourne Demons legend Garry Lyon has paid tribute to Neale Daniher, recalling how he transformed the club as coach before inspiring the country during his fight against motor neurone disease.
Daniher was born in West Wyalong and grew up in Ungarie. He was the third of eleven children and went on to play with Essendon in the VFL/AFL. Alongside his three brothers, they became the first quartet of siblings to play for the same team in a VFL/AFL match.
In 1998, he became the head coach of Melbourne, taking the club from last to fourth in his first season. His time at the Demons had plenty of ups and downs which peaked with a 2000 grand final appearance. He finished as coach in 2007.
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Lyon, who finished with the Demons in 1999, recounted on AFL 360 the first speech Daniher made after the club collected the wooden spoon.
"His first meeting would've been around September and he got us in a room and looked at us and said 'you look like you've all had your dogs run over … we're clearly the worst team, everyone knows that, so we're going to get to work and work harder than anyone'," he said.
Lyon explained how Daniher called them to pre-season early before the Melbourne Cup and told the injury-prone Lyon "if you're going to break down, let's break you down properly son".
"I did the full pre-season, he got me through another year and then I did break down properly," he laughed.
"But he was a hard arse, when he got there he was mean, a mean, nasty man, which was exactly what we needed because we'd become soft … that resonated with me, I loved it.
"We went from easily the worst team in the competition to a prelim final which was pretty special. He was ready to coach."
Later in his coaching career, when Melbourne was struggling for memberships, Daniher then developed a reputation as "The Reverend" due to his increased media presence.
"The Reverend and the warmth came later," Lyon explained.
"It came well after I'd gone. His first few years there was no warmth there, I'll give you the tip."
Daniher's MND diagnosis came in 2013 with the AFL icon co-founding the charity, FightMND.
He spoke candidly about his fight over the years and described himself as "hard to kill". In 2025 he was named Australian of the Year for his work to raise funds for MND research.
The Big Freeze event, held on the King's Birthday public holiday since 2015, has been a defining fundraising movement that was inspired by Daniher and will live on in his legacy.
Lyon wants to see prime minister Anthony Albanese as the next man to go into the iced water.
"It'd be great to have the prime minister to go down the slide and write a dirty big cheque for MND. That'd be symbolic," he said.
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