Source : ABC NEWS
Lachie Neale has one last hope of playing in the grand final after the Brisbane Lions chose to appeal his one-match suspension.
An appeals board hearing is the final avenue available for Neale, who unsuccessfully challenged the ban at a tribunal hearing last night.
The Lions announced this afternoon they would appeal the tribunal’s decision.
Neale has travelled to Melbourne with the Lions squad. The appeals board hearing will be held tomorrow, beginning at 4pm, AEST.
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To succeed at the appeals board hearing, the Lions will have to prove the tribunal finding was either an error of law, an unreasonable decision, a manifestly excessive classification, or a manifestly excessive sanction.
They face Fremantle in Saturday’s grand final at the MCG, chasing a third successive premiership.
Neale was suspended after the tribunal rejected his “inconsistent” evidence in a landmark case.
He was found guilty of striking Hawthorn’s Jack Ginnivan in Saturday night’s preliminary final.
The two-time premiership captain argued his action was not a strike, but a body-check.
After a dramatic four-and-a-half-hour hearing, the tribunal upheld the charge and dismissed pleas for a downgrade due to exceptional and compelling circumstances.
The off-the-ball blow on Ginnivan was graded as intentional conduct, medium impact and body contact by match review officer Michael Christian.
Neale argued contact was made with his shoulder and chest and was not a strike.
He said Ginnivan “might have taken a bit of a dive to get a free kick”.
“My shoulder made contact with his body and shoulder first and my arm wrapped around Jack,” he said.
“But I didn’t feel like I was striking him at all. It was more a bump or body-check.”
The Lions will roll the dice on Lachie Neale’s ban at an appeals board hearing. (Getty Images/AFL Photos: Robert Cianflone)
But tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson KC dismissed Neale’s version of events.
“We find that this was a forceful blow delivered with a swinging arm and an open hand,” Gleeson said.
“When played at normal speed, it appears clear to us that this was, to use the common vernacular, a strike to the guts.
“We are comfortably satisfied that this is what occurred. We find that this is what Neale intended.
“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 and, to that extent, we do not accept it.”
ABC/AAP
