NEALE Daniher’s address to the Melbourne players and coaching staff on Thursday was simply inspiring, says Paul Roos.

Roos said Daniher spoke openly about his fight with MND on Melbourne TV’s Roos’ Views.

“Neale coming in as a past coach of the footy club – he’s so well-respected internally and externally – his talk was unbelievable,” he said.

“He just gave the players much more awareness of motor neurons and how it affects him and some of the messaging that he gave the players was fantastic.

“It’s a nine-day break, playing on a Monday – you don’t want the players to feel like by Monday that they’ve been to the club too often and they’re not ready to play, so that was the first part of the week – just getting that balance right.”

Roos said he had a long association with Daniher.

“It has a fair impact. Personally, I met Neale when he was really young and he was working at a company that was managing me,” he said.

“I remember, as a personal thing, I had some real involvement with him in the early days when he was playing and his work environment.

“I worked with him in the coaches association and setting that up as well, so my connection is really strong with him. Being an ex-coach, he’s coached a number of the players here [at Melbourne], but he’s just a high, quality individual.

“A lot of young guys probably don’t know a lot about his history, but [having] a high, quality individual coming back to the footy club is just fantastic.”

Looking ahead to Monday’s game, Roos said it was another great opportunity to see “how far we’ve come and how far we’ve got to go”.   

“We thought we played really good footy [against Hawthorn last round] … this week we’re playing Collingwood for the second time and probably in similar circumstances they were under pressure the first time we played them and they’re under pressure again.

“We understand that their best is very good, as we saw two weeks ago against the Bulldogs and the week before that against Geelong.

“You throw them all in the melting pot and it’s going to be another really tough game.”

Roos said the Queen’s Birthday clash was now one of the top games on the AFL calendar.

“It’s great. Coming from Sydney and having coached there and been there for a while, blockbuster games were few and far between – not because the club doesn’t play in big games, but they’re not promoted externally,” he said.

“Coming down here and being involved in a game like this – it’s been great for me and I’ve loved it, enjoyed it and seeing the build-up,” he said.

“Collingwood has played in a lot of them, so for them, it’s just another one.

“For us, we want as many Melbourne supporters and as many people in there. We’ve also got the ANZAC Day eve game, which I think has become a really good game on the calendar, so let’s get a big crowd and some Melbourne supporters there. Let’s show the players what it is like to play in a big marquee game.”