{"id":129367,"date":"2025-09-09T04:37:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T04:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/129367\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T04:37:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T04:37:15","slug":"afl-young-lion-levi-ashcroft-expected-to-fill-void-left-by-lachie-neale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/129367\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL: Young Lion Levi Ashcroft expected to fill void left by Lachie Neale"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brisbane young gun Levi Ashcroft is being tipped for the task of filling the “massive void” caused by Lachie Neale’s season-ending injury.<\/p>\n

Dual Brownlow medallist Neale won’t play again this year after tearing a calf in the Lions’ 38-point qualifying final drubbing from Geelong<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Neale’s injury diagnosis came with confirmation key forward Eric Hipwood, who missed the clash against the Cats, requires a knee reconstruction.<\/p>\n

Levi Ashcroft is expected to step up in Lachie Neale’s absence.\u00a0Daniel Carson\/AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Lions stalwart Josh Dunkley nominated Levi Ashcroft to swing from his customary wing position and replace Neale in the midfield in Saturday night’s semi-final against Gold Coast.<\/p>\n

“Losing Lach and even Hippy, we lost them a couple of weeks ago (too) so it’s a great opportunity for our young guys,” Dunkley told reporters on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“It’s similar sort of message to what we had a few weeks ago.”<\/p>\n

Dunkley said while Neale would be missed, Rising Star contender Levi Ashcroft had the tools to replace the co-captain in the midfield.<\/p>\n

“Obviously a massive void, but we’re confident that within our youth we can cover that,” Dunkley said.<\/p>\n

“The message is just having belief in what we do as a footy club.<\/p>\n

“The culture, the development program that we run – everyone is ready to go when we need them.’<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

“And we’ve got a lot of guys that can fill that midfield void if we do lose a soldier.<\/p>\n

“Levi Ashcroft plays on the wing, I have talked about him being really selfless for us as a team, and he’s one of the guys that will put his hand up this week to take that (Neale) role.”<\/p>\n

Brisbane reviewed their heavy loss to Geelong on Monday with Dunkley saying there were “plenty of things” to improve.<\/p>\n

“But as soon as we walked out of that meeting, it was all about this week,” he said.<\/p>\n

“You learn lessons along the way and it’s about definitely implementing them moving forward.<\/p>\n

“But at the same time, we’ve got another job this week that we’re fully focused on.”<\/p>\n

That job is taking the wind from Gold Coast’s sails after the Suns’ stirring one-point elimination final away win against Fremantle.<\/p>\n

“Ever since I moved up here to Brisbane, I’ve always thought whether or not it was a rivalry,” said Dunkley, who joined the Lions from the Western Bulldogs at the end of 2022.<\/p>\n

“And it certainly is, because it (Gold Coast) is just down the road and we play some ripping games against each other.<\/p>\n

“Whether it’s a final or whether it’s a home and away game, I see it as the same thing.<\/p>\n

“It’s just another great opportunity – two clubs going at it, and then the winner obviously plays in a prelim next week against the Pies … we know it’s going to be a cracking contest.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brisbane young gun Levi Ashcroft is being tipped for the task of filling the “massive void” caused by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-129367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}