{"id":709665,"date":"2026-06-02T04:39:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T04:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/709665\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T04:39:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T04:39:05","slug":"west-coast-eagles-great-ben-cousins-opens-up-on-his-father-and-wa-football-legend-bryans-mnd-diagnosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/709665\/","title":{"rendered":"West Coast Eagles great Ben Cousins opens up on his father and WA football legend Bryan\u2019s MND diagnosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Cousins says he has been humbled by the support of friends and the wider community after it was revealed his father Bryan has been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease.<\/p>\n

Bryan, a WA football great, was reduced to tears as he made the personal and emotional revelation over the weekend, inspired by the tragic passing of MND campaigner and AFL great Neale Daniher.<\/p>\n

Ben said he is \u201cgoing OK\u201d following the diagnosis amid an outpouring of support for the Cousins family over the past few days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tough thing to accept initially for all of us but from my own experience, particularly with the close relationship I have with dad and the role he\u2019s played in my life, I continue to be really proud of him and in times of adversity,\u201d he told Mix94.5.<\/p>\n

\u201cOff the back of the weekend (when his diagnosis was made public), I\u2019m just really humbled by the goodwill and support from so many people that I\u2019m friends with or sometimes haven\u2019t seen or spoken to in a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd even just in the community, the goodwill is nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s understood Bryan, 72, was diagnosed with MND last year but had been motivated by Daniher\u2019s passing to share his own story.<\/p>\n

Daniher died peacefully late last month at the age of 65, having raised over $100 million for medical research into a cure since being diagnosed in 2013.<\/p>\n

Ben said he initially grappled with his father\u2019s private diagnosis being made public but acknowledged it will help his family and others living with the disease, as well as raising awareness<\/p>\n

\"BryanCamera IconBryan Cousins talking about his MND diagnosis last weekend. Credit: Stuart Quinn\/The Sunday Times<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know how I felt about that changing but now that it has happened, it will be an important part of moving through the process and the next step in processing exactly what\u2019s happening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes at a time where we are honouring and celebrating the life of Neale Daniher and the contribution he\u2019s made in his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t, but dad also doesn\u2019t, have to look far for some inspiration and I did hear dad refer to Neale Daniher on the weekend as the commander in chief of the MND army.<\/p>\n

\"BenCamera IconBen and Bryan Cousins in 2005. Credit: Paul Kane\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cNow more than ever, we as a family have to rally together and stare this down together, the only way we know how.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryan, who played 238 games for Perth in the WAFL and 67 for Geelong in the VFL, revealed his diagnosis during a one-on-one Q&A at Swan Districts Football Club hosted by club patron and distinguished cancer researcher Professor Bruce Robinson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to a neurologist and I started looking at what I might have and I got the one thing I didn\u2019t want which was MND,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got teary, mainly because I thought \u2014 how am I going to tell the kids?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Cousins says he has been humbled by the support of friends and the wider community after it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[638,64,63,596,588,85,7067],"class_list":["post-709665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-west-coast-eagles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}