Chris Fagan

It's been incredible to witness that, but to see the spirit inside the bloke,

Never ever changed, never ever felt sorry for himself.

Always looking out for others.

I know for me, while he could still talk, he'd ring me and have a chat to see how the team was going and to give me a bit of advice.

When he couldn't talk, there were the texts and the words of encouragement.

He was just relentless with all that.

So I'm ever so grateful that, you know, I've known Neil Danaher since sort of the end of 1997 and he's been a real constant in my life.

And so it was very sad yesterday when Jan gave me a call to say that he passed.

You know, I sort of didn't really know that he was coming towards the end, but I went to a...

I went to watch Melbourne play the Gold Coast Suns about six weeks ago, because we were playing Melbourne the next week, I reckon, or two weeks later, and I was down in Melbourne for a game, so I went to the MCG and had a look at the game, and sort of halfway through the first quarter, I looked to my right and I noticed Neil sitting up in the stands about 15 metres away in his wheelchair with his carer, and...

we caught a glimpse of each other and I had a good 20-30 minutes with him during the game at half time and just having a chat about things and it's funny like every time I saw Neil over the last 4 or 5 years I always wondered is that going to be the last time I've seen and that thought went through my head again that day because you could see that his health was starting to really fail him and

Yeah, sure enough, a month or so later, he's passed away.

But I look back on that day now and very grateful that I did get a chance to have a chat to him not that long ago.

I mean, he knew me really well and he probably understood my battle, my mental battle, I suppose.

We've all got those, our mental demons.

Mine was that, you know, am I good enough?

Do I belong here in the AFL?

Because I didn't play as an AFL player.

All of those sorts of things.

And he recognised that in me when he first gave me a job, I think.