{"id":901893,"date":"2026-09-23T00:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T00:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/901893\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T00:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T00:34:13","slug":"why-the-afl-tribunal-upheld-lions-star-lachie-neales-afl-grand-final-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/901893\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the AFL tribunal upheld Lions star Lachie Neale’s AFL grand final ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finding Lachie Neale guilty was the easy bit for the AFL tribunal.<\/p>\n

The hard part was deciding whether to apply the “exceptional and compelling clause”.<\/p>\n

Neale to miss AFL grand final<\/a><\/p>\n

Brisbane’s Lachie Neale has failed in his attempt to overturn a one-game ban for striking Hawthorn’s Jack Ginnivan at the AFL tribunal and will miss Saturday’s grand final against Fremantle.<\/p>\n

As tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson KC noted at the end of a sensational four-and-a-half-hour hearing last night: “There are matters trending both ways on this issue.”<\/p>\n

Gleeson and his fellow tribunal members, former AFL players Darren Gaspar and Scott Stevens, decided not to enact the clause.<\/p>\n

Neale remains banned from the grand final against Fremantle<\/a>, although the Lions have until midday today to submit a notice of appeal, which would likely be heard tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Why was the suspension upheld?<\/p>\n

For many reasons, according to Gleeson.<\/p>\n

Neale’s evidence was rejected by Gleeson as “inconsistent”.<\/p>\n

Neale insisted he did not strike Hawthorn’s Jack Ginnivan during last Saturday night’s preliminary final.<\/p>\n

“It was more a bump or body-check,” the dual Brownlow medallist said.<\/p>\n

Neale said Ginnivan “might have taken a bit of a dive to get a free kick”.<\/p>\n

The tribunal did not buy the argument.<\/p>\n

“We have listened carefully to Mr Neale’s evidence, but we find it was inconsistent in key respects with what we saw on the video,” Gleeson said.<\/p>\n

“And to that extent we do not accept it.”<\/p>\n

\"Lachie<\/p>\n

Lachie Neale was suspended for striking Hawthorn’s Jack Ginnivan in Saturday’s preliminary final. (Getty Images\/AFL Photos: Robert Cianflone)<\/p>\n

Neale maintained his shoulder and chest made contact with Ginnivan, but the tribunal found it was “a forceful blow delivered with a swinging arm and an open hand”.<\/p>\n

The only video footage of the incident was long-range and, even when enhanced, remained grainy, no matter how many times it was played frame by painstaking frame.<\/p>\n

“It is the case that there is no single frame in the vision that shows Neale’s hand or lower arm making contact with Ginnivan’s abdomen,” Gleeson said.<\/p>\n

“When played at normal speed, it appears clear to us that this was, to use the common vernacular, a strike to the guts.<\/p>\n

“We are mindful of the significant consequences for Neale of this finding of intentional strike. But we find the evidence to be cogent.”<\/p>\n

‘He knew the consequences’<\/p>\n

That was the guilty part.<\/p>\n

Now, for what Gleeson said was “the more difficult issue”.<\/p>\n

Was using the exceptional and compelling circumstances clause justified to downgrade Neale’s penalty from a ban to a fine?<\/p>\n

Introduced this year, the clause had been deployed once: to downgrade a one-match ban for Collingwood legend and AFL games record-holder Scott Pendlebury to a fine.<\/p>\n

Neale wanted it applied to him.<\/p>\n

But, as Gleeson noted, Pendlebury was charged with rough conduct. Specifically, it was graded as careless conduct, medium impact, and high contact.<\/p>\n

Neale was charged with striking. Specifically, it was graded as intentional conduct, medium impact and body contact.<\/p>\n

Gleeson narrowed in on the difference between conduct gradings: Pendlebury was careless, but Neale was intentional.<\/p>\n

\"Lachie<\/p>\n

Lachie Neale (left) has helped the Lions win the past two flags. (AFL Photos via Getty Images: Robert Cianflone)<\/p>\n

There was also Neale’s record, which his barrister \u2014 the AFL’s former football operations boss Adrian Anderson \u2014 compared to Pendlebury’s.<\/p>\n

Until March, Pendlebury had never fronted the tribunal or been suspended in his 21-year career.<\/p>\n

Neale has not previously been banned in a 15-year career that has included two Brownlow Medals, six club champion awards, and co-captaining the Lions to two premierships.<\/p>\n

But as AFL counsel Andrew Woods KC pointed out, Neale had previously been found guilty of offences eight times: three of them for striking the body of opponents.<\/p>\n

But he had never been suspended.<\/p>\n

“This is not the first occasion on which Neale has been found to have struck his opponent,” Gleeson said.<\/p>\n

The tribunal chair also noted the purpose of the AFL’s so-called gut-punch law, also introduced this year. Nine other players have been banned for the offence this season.<\/p>\n

“The purpose of the guideline is to stamp out this very sort of conduct. Neale ignored it, and he knew the consequences,” Gleeson said.<\/p>\n

“Being of Neale’s outstanding record does not render a one-match suspension for that act inappropriate or unreasonable.”<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finding Lachie Neale guilty was the easy bit for the AFL tribunal. The hard part was deciding whether…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[638,17652,3237,10993,10992,11288,16118,6854,43,8401,25875,44,19083,26605,41,39,42,40,26604],"class_list":["post-901893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-afl","tag-ban","tag-brisbane-lions","tag-dockers","tag-fremantle","tag-grand-final","tag-hawks","tag-hawthorn","tag-headlines","tag-jack-ginnivan","tag-lachie-neale","tag-news","tag-scott-pendlebury","tag-suspension","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tribunal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901893","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=901893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=901893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=901893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=901893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}