Danny Frawley Biography

St Kilda has opened the doors to the Danny Frawley Centre for the first time on an emotional morning for the Saints and those closely associated with the former skipper.

Less than 15 months after breaking ground in Moorabbin, the dedicated centre for health and wellbeing has been unveiled on the eve of the 2022 season.

A brain analysis reveals the late Danny Frawley had stage two chronic traumatic encephalopathy at the time of his death in 2019. The neurological disorder can only be identified by a brain analysis after death and is linked to repeated head knocks.

AFL chief Gillon McLachlan said the game had changed considerably since Frawley's time as a player and the League had made a number of changes to provide greater on-field protection for players, while educating clubs about the effects of concussion.

"We have strengthened matchday protocols for the identification and management of concussion, we continue to change the Laws of the Game to discourage high contact, and also moved earlier this season to change the Tribunal rules to more strictly sanction tackles that endanger the head," McLachlan said.

St Kilda is set to turn last week's emotional trip to club legend Danny Frawley's farm into an annual pilgrimage.

Players, coaches and select staff visited the Frawley property on the outskirts of Ballarat to pay tribute to the Saints' second-longest serving captain, who died in a car crash in September.

They were welcomed by the Frawley family and club great Stewart Loewe addressed the players, speaking about the legacy left by his former teammate.

"'Spud' (Frawley) was a connector of people, which we need to do here. He was all about teammates and mateship and he was a captain at 23," Saints football boss Simon Lethlean told AAP.

"The idea now will be we'll do it every year and we'll probably take admin staff and others to make sure the connection is well known. It (will also be) a bit of an induction for new players."

St Kilda's Moorabbin headquarters will host Danny Frawley's memorial service and members of the public will be able to attend.

Meanwhile, the wife of Frawley has revealed her husband's mental health had deteriorated in the weeks leading up to his death, and she's urging others grappling with mental demons not to abandon their support networks.

Anita Frawley says her husband was a champion of mental health and would have wanted her to continue his legacy and be open with the public about the events leading up to his death.

She says her husband returned to being the "Danny of old" a few years ago after accepting psychiatric treatment, counselling and medication.

But she said the road leading up to his death began eight months ago when he decided to take himself off his prescribed medication.

"At this point Danny felt invincible, like the true competitor and proud man that he was; he felt that he had beaten the disease," Anita wrote in a heartfelt statement.

"In fact, he felt bullet proof, which contributed to his decision to remove himself from his support network including his psychiatric care and not continuing to work with his team of mental health professionals.

"The reason I am making this public is that I want this to be a reminder to all those grappling with mental health conditions and to those whom have made progress with their wellbeing that you should always seek help from professionals when considering making decisions surrounding your mental health, even when you feel as though you have fully recovered."

St Kilda champions Stewart Loewe and Robert Harvey lead an emotional tribute for their recently-deceased former teammate, Danny Frawley at the club's 2019 Trevor Barker Award.

"He was the man I just adored, first as a teammate, then as my skipper and then as one of my very best mates," Loewe said of Frawley.

"Harvs and I were both kids when we started our careers at St Kilda and like so many others, he helped shape us into the men we both are today.

"He taught us how to compete, he had enormous empathy, he had an insatiable hunger to drive himself to be the best he could be."

Harvey, who played alongside Frawley for the final eight years of his career that spanned from 1984 to 1995, remembered the full-back's final match against Footscray.

"I'll just never forget the emotion we had that day. I clearly remember thinking, footy won't be the same without him.

"I was just saddened in the days, the week after thinking 'What are we going to do without Spud again?' The laughs, the banter, the dinners, the presence only Spud could bring, it was never going to be there again.

"Unfortunately, we're here again but this is forever. When our old crew gets together, and we drink beers and we tell stories about times passed, it's just changed forever now."

The football world mourns the death of Danny Frawley who was involved in a single-vehicle accident outside Ballarat.

The 56-year-old was travelling alone when his vehicle hit a tree at Millbrook, 20km east of Ballarat. He died at the scene of the crash.

“It is a devastating day for the wider football community, and Danny’s loss will be taken very hard by so many people within our industry, as well as within our own organisation,” McLachlan said.

“Danny was passionate about footy and passionate about people. He made such a positive and lasting influence on so many in our game," AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan said.

“He was a friend to all at the AFL and everyone in the wider football community. ‘Spud’ was loved by all, always a popular visitor to AFL House and our thoughts are with Anita, Chelsea, Danielle and Keeley.

“On behalf of the AFL, I would like to express my deepest compassion to the Frawley family, friends and colleagues.”

Danny Frawley says the prospect of being a "steadying influence" on St Kilda's emerging defenders swayed him to take the part-time coaching role with his former club.

Frawley, 51, was appointed as a specialist backline and key position coach by Hawthorn but had a change of heart over the weekend.

His former club had been in contact for a while about the prospect of him re-entering the coaching world, but couldn't offer anything solid until Luke Beveridge confirmed he would head to the Western Bulldogs last week.

Beveridge was appointed as the Dogs' senior coach on Friday and went with the Saints' blessing, despite having not officially started at Seaford after accepting the director of coaching role mid-year.

Frawley was told of the Saints' position as he stood in the Hawthorn car park on Friday, but needed little time to decide.

"I'm really rapt to be here," Frawley said.

"I'd like to thank the Hawthorn football club for what was going to be a good opportunity as well.

"That's what happens in football sometimes, it's a moving beast, it never stands still.

"It's been a bit of a whirlwind weekend, to be honest."

Danny Frawley is appointed as a part-time defensive coach at Hawthorn.

Part of Frawley's role will be to mentor the Hawks' new defensive coach Adem Yze.

AFL Coaches Association chief executive Danny Frawley is frustrated by clubs' apparent infatuation with appointing a young coach over an experienced one.

"We just find it quite interesting how clubs put a criterion in that they want a young developing coach, but I would have thought clubs want to get the best coach," Frawley said.

Frawley left a message on Terry Wallace's mobile at 8.30am yesterday.

He did it wearing two hats.

One, as chief executive of the AFL Coaches' Association and the other as a former Richmond coach who, like Wallace, found himself under terrific pressure in the last year of his contract in 2004.