AFL great Dermott Brereton reveals he has skin cancer

AFL legend Dermott Brereton has opened up about his fight against skin cancer and urged people to get checked.

The Hawthorn legend, 58, has had two melanomas removed from his thigh and his chest and has also undergone chemotherapy for a sunspot on his eye.

Brereton, who has won five premierships and works at Fox Sports, says he “went through the wringer” during this ordeal.

“Melanoma on my thigh and one on my chest so they cut them out and that made me very vigilant to look for all cancers due to overexposure to the sun,” he told the Announce sun.

“Another sunspot cancer has been cut off my eyeball. We tried to get it with chemotherapy drops, but in the end I just gave up, they were too horrible.

The AFL legend said that attitudes to sunscreen were different in the 1970s

Brereton kicked over 200 goals during his career and won five premierships

He has urged the public to get checked out after revealing his skin cancer turmoil

“I’ve had my treatment cream morning and night for the past few weeks, so that’s starting to settle down a bit now. That rips the s*** out of you, but we all deal with things.’

Looking back at his childhood in Australia in the 1970s, Brereton remembers how people who wore sunscreen were belittled.

“I grew up in the ’70s, anyone who wore sunscreen was weak,” he said.

“If you went for the really heavy sunscreen, you went for 15 plus.

“We used to climb on a buddy’s silver tin roof and rub baby oil on it. That’s what we did in the 1970s, you breed them tough.’

Brereton played for Hawthorn from 1982 to 1992 before finishing his career with spells at Sydney and Collingwood.

He returned to the Hawks in 1997 as the club’s director of football, leaving the post in 2006.

Brereton scored 211 goals in 464 games and is widely regarded as a footballing great.