DAVID Neitz is a humble man above all, a player who said more than once that he often doubted his right to the plethora of records he mounted up. As a realist, he would have known that it was time to go. Most players acknowledge the truth when their bodies are screaming at them and, actually, Neitz knew a while ago.

When he buckled under Jarrad Waite's regulation tackle during the game against Carlton in round five, and the impact caused a reaction out of whack with anything he had experienced — he left the ground clutching his arm in pain and could not return — Neitz knew. But down at the Junction Oval, wise heads such as Chris Connolly convinced him not to make any rash decisions right then and there.

It was only April, and Neitz faced the press to say that he would take eight weeks' rest and see if he could come back later and put some sort of stamp on the end of his career. But as it happens, nothing has changed in his own mind. The page has been turned.

"His body's given up before his will," said Neale Daniher, his former coach. "He has put his body on the line in the physical way he played the game. It's no surprise. The body's given up before the mind and spirit did."

Without putting too broad a brush on this, what happens to most players at the end is that they start to feel like they are a liability to the team, the worst feeling for a player in a team sport.

Fraser Gehrig would know this well, for the St Kilda man is wrestling his own demons this week.

Neitz kicked only three goals in his five games this season, sitting up front in a team that could not get its hands on the football, let alone win a game. The nerve and disc damage in his neck, plainly the result of dozens of big hits in a 16-year career, was bothering him, just as it did all through the 2007 season.

He was a shadow of his former self and it was not a pretty sight. For Neitz ought to be remembered as a great of Melbourne, not a scrubbing full-forward battling for a kick.

Probably not a champion, mind you, but not far short of it.

The record is remarkable. He was twice all-Australian and