Brisbane’s star midfielder Lachie Neale will participate in the AFL grand final after successfully appealing his one-game suspension. The dual Brownlow medal winner is set to face Fremantle, his former team, at the MCG this Saturday after the striking charge against Hawthorn’s Jack Ginnivan was downgraded.
Instead of serving the suspension, Neale will receive a $10,000 fine. He initially challenged the ban at the tribunal on Tuesday night but was unsuccessful.
For the appeal to be successful, Brisbane needed to demonstrate that the tribunal’s decision was an error of law, unreasonable, or involved an excessively harsh penalty. The Lions persuaded the appeals board that the tribunal had failed to consider the significant and compelling circumstances that Neale had not faced suspension in his previous 320 AFL games.
Neale’s successful appeal means he will not join the ranks of players like Collingwood’s Anthony Rocca, who missed an AFL grand final due to a preliminary-final suspension in 2003.
