Lachie Neale to miss AFL grand final after tribunal upholds one-match suspension
Brisbane Lions midfielder Lachie Neale will miss Saturday’s AFL grand final after the AFL tribunal on Tuesday night upheld a one-match suspension for striking Hawthorn’s Jack Ginnivan in last week’s preliminary final. The ruling was handed down following a hearing and deliberation on Tuesday evening.
Neale, a 33-year-old two-time Brownlow medallist who had never previously been suspended across 320 matches, unsuccessfully argued that his exemplary record should allow the ban to be set aside under the so-called exceptional and compelling circumstances applied to Collingwood’s Scott Pendlebury earlier this year. After more than two hours of submissions and another two hours of deliberations, tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson and members Darren Gaspar and Scott Stevens reached their decision, which Gleeson delivered at 9.40pm on Tuesday night.
The tribunal found Neale had struck Ginnivan intentionally and with medium impact, classifying the incident as an off-the-ball act. Gleeson said: "In the end, Neale delivered an intentional strike off the ball to an unsuspecting opponent." He added: "To use the language that has been used more than once this evening, Neale intended to strike him in the guts for the way he behaved towards [Neale’s teammate Eric] Hipwood, and he did strike him in the guts. Even Neale’s outstanding record does not render a one-match suspension for that act inappropriate or unreasonable."
The incident occurred in the first quarter and was behind play, and Neale described his actions as a reaction to seeing Ginnivan and Hipwood in a physical exchange. "I was very close to the incident between Jack and Eric Hipwood, where it seemed like Jack was on top of Eric and gave him a couple of jumper punches and got up and started to move along," Neale told the tribunal. He maintained that his contact was more of a "bump or body check" than a strike.
The AFL upgraded penalties for off-the-ball incidents in 2026, increasing scrutiny on conduct away from the contest. Challenging the tribunal's verdict would require the Lions to take the case to the AFL appeal board in an eleventh-hour effort to clear the legal threshold needed to allow Neale to play.
The Lions have until midday Wednesday to lodge an appeal, but new evidence is generally not allowable at the appeal board stage, meaning the club would face a high legal bar to overturn the suspension. If Neale avoids the ban on appeal he could still play in Saturday’s grand final against Fremantle.
Speculation has linked the out of contract veteran with an off-season move to Victoria. Or, more likely, Neale has already played his last of 185 matches in Lions colours.