West Australian Football legend Bryan Cousins has choked back tears in an emotional interview sharing that he has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

In a one-on-one Q&A at Swan Districts Football Club hosted by club patron and distinguished cancer researcher Professor Bruce Robinson, Mr Cousins was reduced to tears and at times struggled to find his words as he revealed the news to the room full of supporters.

“I was running along the beach and starting to struggle — a bloke stopped me and asked me if I was OK,” Mr Cousins said.

“I went to a neurologist and I started looking at what I might have and I got the one thing I didn’t want which was MND.”

Mr Cousins is no stranger to a battle — playing 238 games for Perth in the WAFL and 67 for Geelong in the VFL — his incredible success on the field saw him win the Sandover Medal in 1983.

His legacy helped inspire his son, Ben Cousins, to make his bid for the AFL — which would see him go on to become a West Coast Eagle and one of the greatest players WA has seen.

It was his son and his family at the front of his mind when Mr Cousins received his MND diagnosis.

“I got teary, mainly because I thought — how am I going to tell the kids?,” he said.

“I texted them on a Sat(urday) and asked them to come round home on Sunday and we had a big hug and a cuddle and we discussed MND.

“One of my granddaughters said ‘pop when you get in the wheelchair can I go for a ride?,” he said laughing while trying to hold back tears. “

It was the recent passing of former Essendon player and Demons coach Neale Daniher, who also battled MND and dedicated his later years to raising awareness, that had given Mr Cousins the strength to share his story.

“The way he approached it and his courage and his attitude, one word kept coming to my mind. He’s a fighter and continued to fight till the day he died,” Mr Cousins said.

The 72-year-old said he has been reflecting on comment made by Mr Daniher over the years about the progressions of the disease, which was now starting to ring true as he faces his own battle.

“I’m getting along, I’m still independent but I’m looking at everything that Neale said and every six months is worse than the previous and you notice the little things in life,” he said.

“But, because of all the amazing things that people are doing I do believe we will find a cure.

“Neale was the one person you thought who was going to beat it, and with the amount of money he’s raised I think it’s something like $140m — I want to follow his lead, he was never a burden to everyone … I saw him as the commended and chief of the MND movement and if we ever find a cure it’s because of him.”