{"id":172118,"date":"2025-09-27T05:57:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T05:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/172118\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T05:57:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T05:57:19","slug":"how-brisbane-plan-to-use-lachie-neale-in-afl-grand-final-versus-geelong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/172118\/","title":{"rendered":"How Brisbane plan to use Lachie Neale in AFL grand final versus Geelong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brisbane Lions<\/a> superstar Lachie Neale is set to start as substitute in the AFL grand final against Geelong<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Neale injured his calf against the Cats in the qualifying final on September 5 – and was tipped to need a four-to-six week layoff for the injury.<\/p>\n

However, the 32-year-old has been selected to play in the Lions team that will run out at the MCG today – only 22 days since he suffered the fitness issue.<\/p>\n

Recent substitute Bruce Reville is expected to get an opportunity in the starting 22, with Neale likely to be injected later in the game as a wildcard.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0What time is Snoop Dogg performing? AFL grand final pre-match entertainment schedule<\/a><\/p>\n

In an interview on Friday, Neale revealed he thought his season was definitely over when the injury was first suffered.<\/p>\n

“I look like a bit of a goose,” Neale said.<\/p>\n

“I put an Instagram post up saying my season was done, and poor me, and now it looks a bit silly.<\/p>\n

“It’s been a little bit of a roller-coaster, emotionally.<\/p>\n

“The last couple of weeks, I’ve just tried to focus on my rehab and sort of home in on that and support the boys through a couple of really good finals where they’ve performed so well.<\/p>\n

“Really proud of the guys to get in this position.”<\/p>\n

Neale is hugely important to the Lions midfield mix as their main extractor, but the team coped well without him since his injury, overcoming Gold Coast<\/a> and Collingwood<\/a> without their star player.<\/p>\n

Substitutes for both teams will be announced 60 minutes before the first bounce at 1:30pm – the same time Snoop Dogg is set to take the stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brisbane Lions superstar Lachie Neale is set to start as substitute in the AFL grand final against Geelong.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-172118","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172118","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=172118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}