{"id":385807,"date":"2026-01-02T01:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T01:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/385807\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T01:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T01:08:08","slug":"lachie-neale-makes-brisbane-lions-career-decision-after-personal-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/385807\/","title":{"rendered":"Lachie Neale makes Brisbane Lions career decision after personal drama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lachie Neale has made a surprising decision about his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/au\/afl\/brisbane-lions\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brisbane Lions<\/a> career after being affected by a personal drama.<\/p>\n<p>The two-time Brownlow Medallist has stepped down as Lions captain &#8211; leaving co-leader Harris Andrews as the sole skipper &#8211; with a statement from Brisbane confirming the decision.<\/p>\n<p>Neale has been going through personal issues surrounding his relationship with wife Jules, who no longer follows her husband on social media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Brisbane Lions confirm Lachie Neale has made the decision to stand down as Co-Captain, effective as of today,\u201d a club statement read.<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/au\/afl\/brisbane-lions\/news\/state-origin-afl-make-sh\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">State of Origin: AFL make shock backflip on premiership star<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cNeale has shared the role alongside Harris Andrews for the past three seasons \u2013 guiding the Club to three Grand Finals and back-to-back premierships.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe 32-year-old determined this was the best move for him and the Club following a challenging personal period.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNeale will address media in Brisbane at Brighton Homes Arena at 11:30am today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hugh McCluggage and Josh Dunkley were the Lions&#8217; two vice-captains in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Neale is a two-time Brownlow Medal winner in 2020 and 2023 &#8211; and has been All-Australian on four occasions.<\/p>\n<p>He returned from a serious calf injury in a sub role for the 2025 AFL grand to help lead Brisbane to a second consecutive AFL premiership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lachie Neale has made a surprising decision about his Brisbane Lions career after being affected by a personal&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-385807","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\/385807","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=385807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}