Jules has since fallen out with former friend Tess Crosley and has wiped all photos of her and Lachie from her Instagram page.<\/p>\n
While Neale insisted he would not respond to questions about his personal life as he faced reporters for the first time after standing down as co-captain, the dual Brownlow medallist made an eyebrow-raising comment about his future. <\/p>\n
Neale on two occasions sidestepped opportunities to guarantee he wants to remain with the Lions beyond the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
Neale is contracted until the end of this year and will be one of the hottest free agents on the AFL market, despite turning 33 in May.<\/p>\n
Rumours of a possible return to Western Australia have swirled in recent months despite his manager in September attempting to squash speculation Neale would consider a move back to WA where Jules\u2019 family lives. <\/p>\n
When asked if his future remains in Brisbane, Neale responded by saying: \u201cYeah, I\u2019m going to be here for this season coming up and I\u2019m fully committed to putting everything I can into footy and I can\u2019t wait to get into training and I\u2019m looking forward to it\u201d. <\/p>\n
When asked about his future a second time, Neale responded: \u201cI haven\u2019t really considered that yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think my decision was always going to be put on hold with my contract regardless so we will work that out in the next six months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neale is only five games short of reaching the 300-game milestone. <\/p>\n
Rumours swirled before the Lions\u2019 2025 Grand Final triumph that West Coast is planning to make a play to bring Neale back to Perth, where he played 135 games for Fremantle from 2012-18.<\/p>\n
However, his manager, Tim Lawrence of TGI Sport, told Code Sports at the time there was \u201cabsolutely nothing to it\u201d.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to the report, Neale has always planned to put together a strong pre-season before getting into talks about a contract extension with the Lions. <\/p>\n
The two-time premiership captain will not be in the Lions\u2019 official leadership group when he returns for pre-season training next week. <\/p>\n
Neale was at times visible emotional when announcing his decision to stand down as captain during Friday\u2019s press conference. <\/p>\n
\u201cI understand the interest in my personal life, but these are personal matters and I won\u2019t be answering any questions on that topic today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can confirm though with regret that Jules and I have now separated. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I won\u2019t go into specifics I can say that I have let my family down and I apologise for my actions that have let done those that are closest to me. And for that I am deeply sorry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI accept the consequences of my actions, and I need to focus on rebuilding that trust with Jules as the future wellbeing of our children remain our No. 1 priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked bluntly if he had cheated on his wife, Neale responded: \u201cNo I can\u2019t address those rumours\u201d.<\/p>\n
He answered another question by saying he has \u201cregrets\u201d about his personal life. <\/p>\n
When asked if he is hoping to fix his marriage, Neale walked off by saying, \u201cI won\u2019t comment on that, thank you\u201d.<\/p>\n
He looked briefly overcome with emotion when explaining his decision to step down as captain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m extremely disappointed in myself and I\u2019ve put plans in place to do the work on myself so I can be the best version of myself moving forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the personal matters that I am currently working through I have made the decision to stand down as co-captain and from the leadership group effective immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing the captain of the Lions has been a huge honour, but it\u2019s time to move forward with a fresh start. I spoke through this with the club over the last week or two and it was a pretty easy decision for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime to move on and let someone else or Harris (Andrews) do the job by himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the decision was \u201c100 per cent\u201d his and that he had not been pressured to give up the position.<\/p>\n
He said he spoke with Lions coach Chris Fagan and Lions football boss Danny Daly before making the call. <\/p>\n
Daly said in a club statement Neale will remain an important part in the club\u2019s future. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe acknowledge Lachie\u2019s decision to step down as Co-Captain and from the leadership group. Being a captain of the Brisbane Lions comes with a high level of expectation and commitment to uphold our Club values and lead by example.\u201d Daly said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thank Lachie for his contribution as a leader of our club for the past three seasons during a highly successful period and look forward to Lachie remaining an important part of our Club in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur priority as a football Club is to always support our people and their families. We\u2019ve been doing this privately with both Lachie and Jules during this difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lachie Neale made national headlines during his drama-charged press conference on Friday, but one bombshell detail has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-389448","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\/389448","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=389448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}