Collingwood goalkicking great Anthony Rocca has revealed he is battling cancer and will step away from football while undergoing chemotherapy.
The 46-year-old, who retired in 2009 after a long AFL career that began with the Sydney Swans, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma two weeks ago after a battery of tests and scans.
He said he had spent four weeks experiencing sharp back pain at night before accepting it was time to see a doctor.
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“I’ll beat this,” Rocca told News Corp.
“No one likes the dreaded ‘c’ word, it is even hard for me to say it now.
“No one likes to be told you have got that sort of illness. But I am the sort of person who deals with what is front of me.
“When I found out, I was like ‘how do we treat it, how do we deal with it, when can we get started on treatment and what’s the plan?’”
Rocca spent time on coaching staffs at Collingwood and North Melbourne after retiring and remained in the AFL until just a few years ago.
He moved into the under-18 pathways system in 2022 when he was appointed coach of the Northern Knights.
Rocca has already taken leave from the role to focus on his looming six-month chemo program, maintaining a positive outlook after being told his cancer is “very treatable”.
The 2002 AFL grand finalist decided to speak out to encourage others not to put off seeing a doctor when symptoms arise.
“There are probably plenty of tradies out there, or workers, both men and women, who are experiencing pain,” Rocca said.
“I would just say to them ‘if you are not feeling right, go and get checked and get on top of things early’.
“Something in the back of my mind was telling me it was quite different to what I had experienced in the past.
“I had this back pain, but I was still training and going to the gym and doing boxing sessions. It wasn’t affecting me during the day.
“But I would wake up in the middle of the night and it was like a strange, stabbing pain, almost like a thoracic soreness, but I knew it wasn’t that because I’ve had thoracic soreness before.”
Rocca paid tribute to his wife Enza, who celebrated her birthday this week, and their children Mia and Max.
“Happy b’day to the most amazing, supportive and most beautiful woman,” he wrote on Friday.
“Word’s cannot express how grateful I am to have you in my life. We love you so much.”
The pain that led to Rocca’s cancer diagnosis started just weeks after he was back in the spotlight as a boxer.
He fought North Melbourne great Corey McKernan at an event during AFL Gather Round in April.
Rocca won via knockout and earned praise when he held up McKernan after the final blow.
“We don’t want to hurt anyone,” he said.
“We’re not boxers, we get in here and we try our best.”
Rocca appeared on Channel 7’s The Front Bar in May.