AFL grand final 2026: Inside the turmoil of Brisbane Lions star Lachie Neale’s season amid marriage split, tribunal drama

Back in 2009 when Jason Akermanis’ football brilliance was waning along with his team behaviour at the Western Bulldogs, Leigh Matthews described his former Brisbane Lions three-time premiership player as a distraction he only tolerated at the football club as long as he was playing well.

Few similarities exist between the personal styles of the great “Aker” and the even more highly decorated Lachie Neale, but what links the two – beyond Brownlows and multiple Lions best and fairests – is the extraordinary disturbance factor both inflicted upon their football club. In a year when both were striving for a third-straight premiership.

While the narcissistic Akermanis tended to run off at the mouth and expose in-house issues, the distractions the single-minded Neale has inflicted upon Brisbane have been many and varied, punctuating the club’s fortunes since his battle in the lead-up to last year’s grand final to overcome a serious calf injury.

It will reach its full circle at the MCG on Saturday after the champion midfielder takes his place in his fourth consecutive grand final, having been sensationally cleared to play on Thursday by the AFL appeals board after punching Jack Ginnivan in the stomach.

The Lachie Neale off-field soap opera broke in December and became a massive issue for the club as Neale’s wife, Jules, and her friend, Tess Crosley, led the commentary on social media while Brisbane bosses Sam Graham, Danny Daly and coach Chris Fagan worked to manage the fallout.

Three years earlier, at least one high-profile former Lion urged coach Chris Fagan not to make the self-absorbed Neale captain alongside Harris Andrews. But Fagan went with Neale anyway, arguing – correctly, as it turned out – that leadership would only improve the player and his prodigious talent.
The marriage break-up, much talked-of infidelity and ongoing melodramatic undercurrents made that co-captaincy role untenable.

Although the club constantly denied Neale’s private life disrupted the playing group, relationships were undoubtedly fractured, particularly among player partners who were horrified at Neale’s behaviour. No one begrudges Neale’s late entry back into the grand final team, but it is a sad irony that one of the club’s most beloved players, Noah Answerth, will miss out.

Stripped of leadership, Neale vowed to dedicate himself to the 2026 season as Jules and their two young children moved home to Perth. Fagan publicly gave Neale his blessing to return home at season’s end and finish his career in Western Australia. But Fagan’s tone changed when it became clear Neale was exploring opportunities with Melbourne-based clubs.

On SEN, Fagan described Neale’s potential decision to leave Brisbane for Victoria instead of relocating near his family in Perth as a “head scratcher”.

Neale privately explained his eyebrow-raising decision to not settle in the same city as his children by pointing out that both his parents lived relatively close to Melbourne – one in the western district and the other near the South Australian border. He described the prospect of living in Perth as a potential media circus. Why he would leave Brisbane was less obvious, although it later emerged that the Lions had not actually offered him a deal and, while going through a costly marriage break-up, there was more money on the table elsewhere.

Essendon were the first club to strike. Then-coach Brad Scott flew to the Gold Coast in early May as a ruse before driving to Brisbane where he met Neale and offered the player a five-year deal broken into three years of playing and two years of coaching components not dissimilar to the agreement Scott Pendlebury later struck with the Suns. The Bombers were confident they had secured him, but then Scott was sacked and the deal never materialised.

In early July, the Lions players were on a team bus bound for Geelong when they learned that Neale had booked dinner the night after the game with his former Fremantle coach Ross Lyon. The Saints coach later declared his club would not pursue Neale, but Brisbane’s disappointed on-field leaders knew they would have to work to contain the Neale saga as they worked towards September while he pursued a career away from the Gabba.

Then in early August, shortly after the Lions were thrashed by Carlton in round 21, it emerged that Neale had toured Collingwood’s headquarters on the eve of that match. Xander McGuire reported Neale had discussed which number he would wear at the Magpies where he is now headed on a three-year $3 million deal.

Fagan downplayed the fact that Neale had toured the KGM Centre without his knowledge, but with classic understatement added, “It would be nice if he would [tell me], so you don’t get caught by surprise, but that’s the way it is.”

Like Essendon, Collingwood bosses have already begun informal discussions over the handling of Neale and his melodramatic private life. On the eve of the finals, both Jules Neale and Crosley delivered their various versions of the Neale saga in a way that was unedifying for everyone.

And then Neale, whose private life has been consistent gossip column fodder in 2026, went “Instagram official” with his new girlfriend, Emma Field. That news was posted in the hours leading up to the Lions’ disastrous qualifying final clash with Sydney.

It took the Brisbane hierarchy five days of legal talks and negotiations, but Lachie Neale was rightly cleared to play due to his exemplary record. Six best and fairests, four All-Australians, two Brownlows and not one suspension from 320 games. He has been worth all the angst even though he has behaved selfishly and shown poor judgment on several occasions this year.

That behaviour has proved an anathema at times for Brisbane’s trio of captains — Andrews, Josh Dunkley and Hugh McCluggage — and frustrated several teammates and coaches. But he has delivered. Although his September form has been below-par, Neale has still won more coaches’ votes than any other Brisbane player this season besides Will Ashcroft. And he was performing early in the season when so many teammates struggled for form.

When Lions leaders confronted Leigh Matthews about Akermanis’ behaviour in 2023 the coach said that players of his ilk were tolerated for so long as the positives outweighed the negatives.

Interestingly, concerning Neale, the Lions were prepared all season to let Neale go despite the fact that he was probably leading the Merrett-Murray Medal until Ashcroft’s late-season run.

The out-of-contract Neale was never offered a new deal by the Lions, whose stretched salary cap prioritised Zac Bailey and Logan Morris. Surely, the positives still outweighed the negatives, yet the club envisioned a world without Lachie Neale.

This time last year Neale burst onto the MCG under an injury cloud and made history with a near flawless second half as the last ever sub. Had he missed what looks certain to be his final game in eight brilliant seasons for the Lions it would have been an injustice, not only concerning the game’s judiciary but also in terms of the symmetry of this most theatrical 12 months.

Now he owes it to himself and his club to perform.