{"id":721884,"date":"2026-06-07T22:59:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T22:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/721884\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T22:59:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T22:59:27","slug":"big-freeze-12-the-neale-daniher-message-that-put-a-melbourne-demons-great-on-the-slide-nathan-jones-mcg-kings-birthday-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/721884\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Freeze 12: The Neale Daniher message that put a Melbourne Demons great on the slide, Nathan Jones, MCG, King\u2019s Birthday game"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Nathan Jones has been pushed out of his comfort zone by Neale Daniher before.<\/p>\n

As a teenager in 2006, he made his debut for Melbourne under Daniher, the Demons\u2019 famously uncompromising coach. Now he\u2019s an assistant coach at the club, and Daniher \u2013 who died of motor-neurone disease a fortnight ago \u2013 is sending him down the Big Freeze slide at the MCG in front of perhaps 90,000 footy fans.<\/p>\n

\"NathanNathan Jones is honoured to be a slider in Monday\u2019s Big Freeze 12. Chris Hopkins<\/p>\n

It was in the days after Melbourne\u2019s round-three win over Carlton in late March that Jones received a text from his former coach.<\/p>\n

It opened with a typically honest critique of the team; Daniher\u2019s 12-year battle with MND had not dulled his passion for the game and how it should be played.<\/p>\n

\"DaniherDaniher and Jones embrace in 2015.Getty Images<\/p>\n

Next came the request to get uncomfortable \u2013 Daniher wanted the former Demons skipper to momentarily put aside his pre-match duties ahead of his team\u2019s King\u2019s Birthday match against Collingwood and go down the slide in Big Freeze 12.<\/p>\n

Daniher\u2019s death at home on May 25 has only made the rally cry from his former coach more meaningful.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe proceeded to ask me if I\u2019d be keen to do it, and I obviously jumped at it,\u201d Jones said on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was super honoured and super grateful that he gave me the opportunity. As sad as that is now, I look back and I\u2019m just rapt that he gave me the opportunity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m super sad that he won\u2019t be there, but the best thing to do is to \u2018play on\u2019, as he would say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones only spent a season and a half under Daniher at the Demons, but the veteran coach had a telling impact on him at the start of an AFL career that totalled 302 games, three best-and-fairest awards and the captaincy of the Dees for six seasons.<\/p>\n

It was Daniher who gave Jones his debut late in the 2006 season, and it was also Daniher whose tough love pushed him to become a leading player. Those same lessons now inform his coaching at the Dees.<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly on, I was actually quite intimidated by him. [He] was very much the old-school coach who was pretty ruthless, set in his ways, and preached humility and hard work; all the cornerstones of what makes great football teams and sporting teams and professional organisations,\u201d Jones recalled. \u201cBut he also had this kind of underlying warmth, and if you demonstrated some of those values that he held so dear, then he became pretty fond of you.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that was the case with me. He very much wanted to keep you level-headed. I had finished my first year pretty well, and got a little bit of individual acknowledgement, and some team success, and played in the VFL premiership after playing in a couple of AFL finals, so I walked into my end-of-season exit interview thinking that everything is going up from here.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Neale<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHe brought me back down a peg, telling me I need to put more work in, and that I was unfit and a bit overweight and I haven\u2019t even scratched the surface of what I\u2019m capable of.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe added that if I don\u2019t come back [to the next pre-season] and win the 3km time trial and have real purpose and focus, then I won\u2019t make it anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones took those home truths to heart, playing 21 games in 2007 and finishing runner-up to James McDonald in the club best-and-fairest award.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll always look back on that fondly, but I walked out of that meeting with my tail between my legs, thinking, \u2018what have I done?\u2019,\u201d Jones recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, ultimately, it was around the humility piece, and driving high standards and high expectations, and, when I look back, I ended up having a really strong second year and I think it was because of him pushing me and driving me down that path of accountability and making sure that I put the work in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TensTens of thousands of footy fans at the MCG on Monday will, like Nathan Jones, be wearing the trademark FightMND beanie.Photograph by Chris Hopkins<\/p>\n

Daniher finished as Demons coach in June 2007, but Jones\u2019 bond with his former mentor became even stronger in when Daniher was diagnosed with MND in 2013 and launched the Big Freeze fundraisers the following year, since raising more than $140 million.<\/p>\n

Jones was captain of the Demons at that point and aware that his paternal grandfather had died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the most common form of MND.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandpa was 80-odd and he went pretty quickly, so I didn\u2019t look into the condition too much,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I was really familiar with the symptoms, and when Neale was diagnosed, I was like \u2018this is what my grandpa had\u2019. I didn\u2019t think at the time about how quickly grandpa went and the life expectancy when diagnosed, but to think Neale made it 12 years, it\u2019s pretty incredible really.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way he did it so publicly, in particular showing us the way this disease works. It takes away a lot of your independence, a lot of your dignity, your ability to speak and use your hands, but somehow, he was just incredible at bringing people together and inspiring them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Organisers have listed nine people to slide on Monday: Governor-General Sam Mostyn, AC, former Magpie turned commentator Dale Thomas, Seven weather presenter Sam Mac, Australian netballer Jo Weston, footy personality Dan Gorringe, sports broadcaster Mark Howard, Australian freestyle skiing gold medallist Cooper Woods, TV star Andy Lee and Jones.<\/p>\n

While Jones has had plenty of involvement with Fight MND over the years, he never thought he would be asked to slide; a task he will have to wedge between his preparations for the game.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Teammates<\/a><\/p>\n

His costume, to be revealed on the day, has been chosen with knowledge that he will need to get it on and off in between Melbourne\u2019s pre-game team meetings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a bit of a dress-up going, but it\u2019s quite efficient, considering I\u2019m going to slide, jump out, head down to the rooms and have a shower, then head straight up to the coach\u2019s box,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always great energy in the stadium on this day, and I think that the most fitting way to acknowledge his legacy would be to double down on the entire message and someday find a cure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"RoyRoy Ward<\/a> is a sports writer, live blogger and breaking news journalist. He’s been writing for The Age since 2010.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-721884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721884","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=721884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}