Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
AFL boss Andrew Dillon says the league has accepted the appeals board’s sensational ruling to clear Lachie Neale for Saturday’s grand final against Fremantle while admitting it should “potentially” never have moved to that stage.
Neale and Brisbane had his one-match striking ban overturned on Thursday night after successfully arguing the tribunal failed to consider the exceptional and compelling circumstances of his “exemplary” record.
The AFL immediately closed the book on the off-field circus.
“I was comfortable where the match review officer got when they charged him and comfortable with the tribunal decision,” Dillon said on Channel 7’s The Front Bar on Thursday night.
“But ultimately that’s why we have the three levels where it goes through.
“It’s not a win or a loss from an AFL point of view, the process got followed and it’s been downgraded for a fine and he’ll play on Saturday.”
Dillon repeated the point on Sunrise on Friday morning.
“We’re comfortable with the way the process played out. Lachie got the chance to argue his case twice and we’ll accept the findings from the appeals board,” he said.
In what appeared to be an indication of support for Neale’s ‘exceptional and compelling circumstances’, the CEO said “potentially yeah” when asked if the case should have been settled two nights earlier by the tribunal.
“But what happens there is Lachie got the chance to argue again in the alternative,” Dillon said.
“A different panel made a different finding, it was open to him under the rules. We’ll accept that.
“The other part is he was still found guilty of the offence, but they just found that it was a fine rather than the suspension.”
Hawthorn great Luke Hodge, a former teammate of Neale at the Lions, agreed he expected the tribunal to lean on the exceptional and compelling circumstances on Tuesday night.
“When it went to the appeals board I got a little bit worried for him,” the 7AFL expert told Sunrise.
Neale will now line up against his former side Fremantle in what looms as his last game for Brisbane.
The out-of-contract midfielder is expected to join Collingwood on a multi-year deal, but he still shirked the question of his future after the appeal on Thursday night.
Asked what it means to get “one more game” for Brisbane in the grand final, Neale smiled and said: “Who says it’s my last?”
When asked if he was staying at the Lions, he said: “I didn’t say that. We will wait and see what happens at the end of the year.”
Neale is one of 15 Brisbane players gunning to complete a premiership hat-trick.
His availability looks set to end Noah Answerth’s bid to earn a recall.
Answerth, who went down with an ankle injury in the qualifying final, has only been named among the emergencies and is now relying on a late change to get into the side.
But the forecast has eased from a possible 4-15mm of rain to 1-8mm — with the majority in line to hit before the 2.30pm bounce.
