{"id":398972,"date":"2026-01-08T04:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T04:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/398972\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T04:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T04:24:09","slug":"lachie-neale-given-lions-blessing-if-he-wants-to-return-to-perth-at-end-of-2026-afl-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/398972\/","title":{"rendered":"Lachie Neale given Lions’ ‘blessing’ if he wants to return to Perth at end of 2026 AFL season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Brisbane Lions will not stand in the way of Lachie Neale if the club’s former co-captain chooses to return to Perth at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

If the two-time Brownlow medallist wants to move to a Western Australian club to be closer to his children after his marriage breakdown, he will leave with Lions coach Chris Fagan’s blessing.<\/p>\n

Neale stepped down as co-captain on January 2, when he fronted the media and said he had let his family down<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His wife Jules has moved back to Perth \u2014 where they met when he was playing for Fremantle \u2014 with their two children.<\/p>\n

Lachie Neale steps down as Brisbane Lions co-captain<\/a><\/p>\n

The club said the 32-year-old had made the decision following a “challenging personal period”.<\/p>\n

It has created speculation that Neale, 32, could return to WA at season’s end, when he is out of contract and an unrestricted free agent.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know the answer to that either. I hope he does [stay], but he’s an unrestricted free agent,” Fagan said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“So he can make a call on what he needs to do. He probably needs the next six or seven months to see what the next right step is.<\/p>\n

“I hope he stays and plays with us. But if he chooses to move back to Perth because he needs to be close to his children, then he’ll do that with our blessing.<\/p>\n

“We’re not going to hold anyone to ransom. We’ll just go along with the flow on that.”<\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/p>\n

Chris Fagan has given Lachie Neale his blessing if he wishes to leave the Lions beyond the upcoming season. (AAP: James Ross)<\/p>\n

Fagan said relinquishing the co-captaincy, something Neale had already been considering, was a “sensible decision” given the challenging time for he and his family.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, sad for Jules, sad for Lachie, sad for the children, sad that it’s become such a public thing,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But our job as a footy club, as we do with all of our players, is that they all make mistakes from time to time because they’re human. Everybody standing here has probably made one at some point in time.<\/p>\n

“Our job is just to wrap our arms around him and his family and help them where we can. Outside of that, it’s a private issue.<\/p>\n

“We’ll look after him. I thought it was pretty brave what he did last week. He stood up and owned it. Not many people have to do that in the community.<\/p>\n

“His marriage has hit an obstacle. But he elected to do that [speak to the media]. He wasn’t forced to do that by anyone.<\/p>\n

“I thought that showed really good emotional intelligence and a real sense of responsibility, so I admire him for that.”<\/p>\n

Fagan felt Neale could still “have another good season” despite his turbulent past few months, and did not expect it to affect the Lions’ push for a third straight premiership.<\/p>\n

“Our group’s a pretty mature group,” Fagan said.<\/p>\n

“They’re able to separate what happens in someone’s private life from what happens here at the club.<\/p>\n

“That’s what we focus on. Lachie’s always been a good teammate and a good leader since he’s been here. He’ll continue to do that, and I’m sure the players will embrace that.”<\/p>\n

Fagan indicated either Harris Andrews would be sole skipper, or Josh Dunkley and Hugh McCluggage could join him as co-captains.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brisbane Lions will not stand in the way of Lachie Neale if the club’s former co-captain chooses…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4891,10968,638,64,63,3237,103145,3244,25875,136125,85,3439],"class_list":["post-398972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-4891","tag-10968","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brisbane-lions","tag-captaincy","tag-chris-fagan","tag-lachie-neale","tag-marriage-breakdown","tag-sports","tag-western-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398972","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=398972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}