Source : ABC NEWS
Brisbane coach Chris Fagan doubted Lachie Neale would be cleared for the AFL grand final, as his “cynical” Fremantle counterpart Justin Longmuir took umbrage with the lengthy process.
But both coaches are happy with the end outcome, with Fagan declaring Neale’s availability “good for footy”.
The dual Brownlow Medal winner will feature in the premiership decider against Fremantle — his former club — at the MCG on Saturday after having a one-game ban for striking Hawthorn’s Jack Ginnivan downgraded in a drama-filled hearing on Thursday.
Neale was instead fined $10,000 as the appeals board gave the four-time All Australian midfielder the ultimate reprieve due to having never previously been suspended in his decorated 320-game AFL career.
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“I didn’t think he would (get off),” Fagan told reporters on Friday.
“It was a bit like last year, I didn’t think he was going to play last year until the day before the game when he got through a fitness test.
“So it’s sort of history repeating itself, just in a different way. Good for footy I reckon but we were pretty much ready for him not to be playing, I must admit.”
Brisbane swayed the appeals board that the tribunal had made an error of law in not considering the exceptional and compelling circumstances of Neale’s past record.
Longmuir expected Neale to be cleared all along, although thought the decision would have come earlier in the week.
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“I’m a bit cynical with these things. Sometimes I feel like that’s the outcome that gets reached a little bit later than what I thought it would get reached,” the Dockers coach said.
“We prepared for Brisbane’s best and he’s clearly in their best team. Even if he didn’t play, we felt like someone else would have had to step up and they’ve got a lot of those ‘someone else’s’ that are probably searching for midfield time.”
Longmuir later added: “If players who have great records, who have contributed so much to our game, get a bit of leeway at certain times, I don’t think that’s a bad thing for the game”.
Defender Noah Answerth, injured in Brisbane’s qualifying final loss three weeks ago, was available and would have returned had Neale been suspended, but misses out.
“Coaches aren’t supposed to have favourite players but he’s (Answerth) one of mine,” Fagan said.
“If Lachie hadn’t have played, Noah would have come into the team and Jaspa Fletcher would have pushed up onto a wing.”
For the second year in a row, Neale has been the headline story of grand final week.
Last year, the 33-year-old famously overcame a calf injury that appeared season-ending to play a second-half super-sub role in the Lions’ stunning demolition of Geelong.
Neale’s fourth-straight grand final will almost certainly be his last for Brisbane, with a move to Collingwood looming in the off-season.
“Who says it’s my last?” Neale replied to a question about his future.
With rain expected on Saturday, Neale will figure prominently as one of the Lions’ best wet-weather players.
Brisbane take an unchanged team into the grand final as they attempt to become just the third side in the last 69 years to complete an AFL premiership three-peat.
And should they win, it would be the second three-peat in their history, following 2001-2003, and it would see them join Melbourne (1939-41 and 1955-57) as one of the only two teams to record the feat twice.
AAP
