Damian Monkhorst
Australian rules footballer
Damian Monkhorst is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Collingwood Football Club and St Kilda Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL).
Playing career
During his playing career with Collingwood, Monkhorst was known as one of the league's best and toughest ruckmen to play against.
'Monkey' came to Collingwood from Woori Yallock and made his debut in 1988 at age 18. The 202 cm, 116 kg big man was classed as a no.1 ruckman as soon as he got to Victoria Park, and his early career headed him to become a premiership ruckman in 1990. Monkhorst said that he was lucky to be playing in the Grand Final after fellow big man James Manson had a brilliant finals campaign, but Monkhorst dominated experienced performer Simon Madden after spending most of the first quarter on the bench.
Monkhorst developed well, and performed at his peak in years 1992–1994, where he finished third in the best and fairest in each of the seasons. Monkhorst proved as a tough man, but in 1994 he was involved in a controversial incident which then introduced the melee rule, as he had started a melee after running through Essendon's huddle at the start of a match.
In 1995 during the drawn Anzac Day match at the MCG in front of 95,000 spectators, Monkhorst was involved in an incident that would bring enduring social change to the AFL when he was accused of racially vilifying Essendon's Aboriginal wingman Michael Long. Monkhorst was required to attend a mediation session with Long and although Long was not happy with the outcome at the time, the handshake at the end of the session has since paved the way for very few racial taunts on the field, with less than half-a-dozen reported since.
1996 took a turn on Monkhorst's career where he was outed several times with hamstring and back injuries.
“Damian Monkhorst” enters the record as australian rules footballer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Damian, Monkhorst and Australian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5212299. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1988, 1990, 1992 and 1994.
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