Latest news with #LachieNeale
News.com.au
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Lions captain's ‘extraordinary comment' clips rising star teammate
Lachie Neale's 'extraordinary comments' about Brisbane Lions rising star Will Ashcroft have caused a stir after the club's big win over Hawthorn. The dual Brownlow Medal-winner on Monday appeared to drop a subtle reality check for the former No. 1 draft pick. Speaking on SEN Breakfast during a 15-minute interview about the club's return to form, Neale said Ashcroft is far from a finished product at the age of 21. FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every match of every round in the 2025 Toyota AFL Premiership Season LIVE in 4K, with no ad-breaks during play. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited-time offer. 'I've seen some pretty professional blokes, and he's still working on his body and what he needs to do to get to that top echelon,' Neale said when asked about Ashcroft's professionalism. 'But he's still learning though and he's got a little way to go to be the most professional, but I think the way he handles himself is first-class.' Ashcroft, who won the Norm Smith medal during the Lions' Grand Final thumping of the Swans, is continuing to emerge as one of the club's biggest stars, but has shown hot and cold form this season. It's why Neale's comments caught the eye of veteran football reporter Caroline Wilson. Wilson on Channel 7's Agenda Setters said Neale's comment was a 'bit of a clip' for Ashcroft. 'Could we have a quick listen to the Brownlow medallist, Lachie Neale, and some extraordinary comments — well, it pricked up my ears anyway,' she said. 'I thought that was a bit of a clip and really fascinating. 'He's got a lot of work to do, clearly.' The Lions showed they are still among the teams to beat in 2025 with a big win over the Hawks in Round 11. Small forwards Charlie Cameron and Callum Ah Chee were stand outs in kicking seven goals between them. Neale said it had been up to the team's midfield to bring the dangerous forwards back into the game in recent weeks. The Lions went into the Hawks clash having kicked just 32 goals in their past three games. After a surprise loss to the Demons and a draw with North Melbourne, the pressure was on the Lions — and they delivered. Neale said before the big win over the Hawks that the club was not at panic stations. 'Maybe it's in our heads a little bit, so we've got to release the shackles a bit,' he said. 'We've been through far worse periods than this, so we're not panicking. 'It's a really long year, it's 24 weeks if you include the bye, and I think we learned some pretty good lessons last year that if you can find form at the right time, things can change quickly and your fortunes can change. 'Even Gold Coast we played pretty well against them, they would've been disappointed with the way they played … then you look at their next two weeks. 'We feel like if we can connect a bit better and our hunt and pressure around the ball improves then we can bounce back really quickly.'
News.com.au
20-05-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
Neale still confident despite form slump
AFL: Brisbane Lions' Lachie Neale believes his side can fight their way back after failing to win their last two games.
News.com.au
20-05-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
AFL 2025: Brisbane co-captain Lachie Neale on the shift that could reignite the Lions
Brisbane co-captain Lachie Neale says the Lions must 'release the shackles' to amend their shaky fortnight. The Lions – who are still outright second – have had a surprising drop of form over the past two weeks, drawing with North Melbourne last round before losing to Melbourne on Sunday. They travel to the MCG for the second time since their grand final triumph over Sydney to take on fellow top-four side the Hawks this Saturday. Neale said the Lions had endured far worse slumps and come out the other side, but he still wanted his team to loosen up on Saturday. 'It feels like the last couple of week's maybe we've been a little bit frustrated and not playing our best footy,' Neale said. 'Maybe it's in our heads a little bit, so we've got to release the shackles a bit – we've been through far worse periods than this, so we're not panicking. 'It's a really long year, it's 24 weeks if you include the bye, and I think we learned some pretty good lessons last year that if you can find form at the right time, things can change quickly and your fortunes can change. 'Even Gold Coast we played pretty well against them, they would've been disappointed with the way they played … then you look at their next two weeks. 'We feel like if we can connect a bit better and our hunt and pressure around the ball improves then we can bounce back really quickly.' Neale's captaincy counterpart Harris Andrews was tagged again at the weekend, with Melbourne forward Jake Melksham keeping the star defender from his best. The dual Brownlow Medal winner says he will urge Andrews to get back to doing what he does best: reading and intercepting the footy. 'I think Harris at his best is not worrying too much about what the opposition are trying to do with him, he just plays his natural game,' Neale said. 'He's such an aerial threat, so good for us defensively. He reads the game so well and maybe when he's playing a little bit below his best he might be too consumed by what's going on around him. 'If he's reading the game at his best, it doesn't matter who's playing around him – he's had it before and dominated. 'I just urge him to read the game like he does and back himself in. I am sure he will get to work, he's the ultimate pro and doesn't need me giving him advice.'
ABC News
29-04-2025
- Sport
- ABC News
George Hewett key to Carlton's resurgence as Lachie Neale gets back to his incisive best — what we learned from round 7 of the AFL season
An unheralded player helps Carlton continue its resurgence, Lachie Neale gets back to his best, Jack Gunston turns up the heat, and two Bulldogs midfielders continue to come up big when it matters. Here's what we learned from round seven of the AFL season. George Hewett has Carlton's engine room humming Any discussion about Carlton's midfield over the last five years has been centred around its All-Australian duo of Patrick Cripps and Sam Walsh. Too often, too much work has been left to the skipper and his right-hand man in the middle of the ground, but this season a teammate has stepped up in a big way. Carlton's decision to let Matt Kennedy walk at the end of last season was heavily questioned after its 0-4 start to the campaign, but the club has strung together three in a row to revive its season and one of the key men in the resurgence has been a player who was essentially chosen over Kennedy, veteran midfielder George Hewett. Loading Twitter content With the likes of Cripps, Walsh and star ruckman Tom De Koning in the middle of the ground, Hewett can often be overlooked, but the ex-Swan is putting together his best season yet. Hewett has averaged 30.1 disposals and 7.7 clearances a game through seven matches, smashing his previous career-averages by a wide margin. He has also lifted his tackle average from 4.6 last season to 7.4. He ranks sixth in the league for contested possessions and fifth in the league for centre clearances, an area where the Blues have seen a major uptick in the last month, going from ninth on the season to third in the last five matches. The Blues face a big test coming up this week against the Crows in Adelaide, but they go into the match having gained back some of their midfield mojo. Lachie Neale slices up the Saints After a disappointing loss to Collingwood in round six, it was important for the reigning premiers to bounce back straight away, and they did so handsomely against the Saints. Brisbane has been guilty of some slow starts this season, but came out of the gates like a team possessed and amassed eight scoring shots before the Saints registered one, and should have been further ahead if not for some poor kicking. Poor kicking can often seem contagious on a football field, but Brisbane's best player, Lachie Neale, seemed to be immune to all the errant ball use with a sublime individual performance. Discussions about the game's best kicks often don't include Neale, but he's proven to be one of the most efficient midfielders by foot throughout his career. His kicking is less about distance, but more about being incisive. A fourth-quarter kick inside 50 to find Hugh McCluggage typified exactly how Neale cuts teams apart by foot. Loading YouTube content Neale has blown hot and cold to start the year. Saturday's 31-disposal performance is just his third game of 30 or more touches for the season, but he was back at his best against the Saints. The two-time Brownlow Medal winner racked up 493 metres and registered two goal assists to go along with three majors of his own in arguably his most damaging performance of the season. After being held to 10 touches and 20 touches in two of the first three games this season, Neale has tallied at least 25 disposals in each of his last four outings, and you get the sense the 32-year-old is slowly working his way into the season. In one of the most bizarre stats you'll likely see this season, St Kilda had the two leading clearance-winners on the ground in Jack Macrae and Jack Steele, but somehow still lost the clearance battle by 18 to the Lions. Jack Gunston, bringing the heat and the goals Hawthorn snapped a run of two straight losses with a comfortable 50-point win over West Coast, with Jack Gunston leading the way yet again with another four goals. Gunston, having kicked 17 goals in five appearances, is now tied with last year's Coleman Medal winner Jesse Hogan for seventh on the AFL's goalkicking list, something the Hawks would not have envisioned coming into the season. The 33-year-old is one of two holdovers from Hawthorn's triple-premiership team alongside Luke Breust, and his nous has proved invaluable in a forward line that is otherwise still relatively inexperienced. The forward line is arguably the weakest area of the ground for Hawthorn, and is why the team has been linked with a move for West Coast skipper Oscar Allen, but Gunston has proven himself to be an excellent focal point this season. Jack Gunston continues to defy Father Time in Hawthorn's forward line this year. ( Getty Images: James Wiltshire ) Hawthorn leads the league in pressure acts with over 290 a game, and Gunston's ability to buy into this has been what has kept him on the field this season after initially starting as a sub against Carlton in round two. Of the AFL's top 10 goalkickers this season, Gunston's 11.6 pressure acts a game ranks him behind only St Kilda's Jack Higgins (14.7) and North Melbourne's Paul Curtis (13.6). He is by far the leading pressure player among key forwards. Gunston's pressure is right up among Hawthorn's mosquito fleet of forwards as well. He averages more pressure acts a game than both Nick Watson and Blake Hardwick, and plays a major role in helping the Hawks lock the ball in their forward 50 when it gets inside there. A team with Gunston as its forward line focal point probably isn't winning it all in 2025, but if he continues to keep up this level of play, he'll make a case to keep his spot even when key forward duo Calsher Dear and Mitch Lewis make their respective returns from injury later in the year. New-look midfield helps Bulldogs into the top eight The Bulldogs have been impressive to start the season, but claimed perhaps their biggest scalp at the weekend with The Dogs overwhelmed the Giants in the middle of the ground as they won the clearance battle by a whopping 22 and scored 25 more points from clearances than the Giants. Luke Beveridge, in the final year of his current contract, has turned in a masterful coaching job through the first portion of the season to keep the Bulldogs afloat with some big names out. Starting the season with Marcus Bontempelli and Adam Treloar sidelined resulted in the Bulldogs trusting lesser names such as Ed Richards, off-season addition Matt Kennedy and teenager Joel Freijah in the middle, and it's provided instant dividends. Teenager Joel Freijah has been a revelation in the midfield for the Bulldogs through seven rounds. ( Getty Images: Darrian Traynor ) The trio was excellent against the high-powered Giants midfield, combining for 26 clearances with Richards and Freijah having a game-high nine each. Freijah, taken 45th overall in the 2023 draft, has been one of the finds of the season. Standing at 191cm, he is a prototypical tall modern-day midfielder, and has gone from averaging 0.2 clearances in 13 games last season to four a game so far this year. Richards has been around the block for a little longer, but has come into his own as a fully-fledged midfielder this season after operating around the periphery of the Dogs' engine room in seasons past. He is currently averaging 25.7 disposals and 5.7 clearances per game. Bontempelli is back and Treloar, having put up a near career-best year last year, is around the corner. Good luck going up against the Bulldogs midfield in the next month. The ABC of SPORT Sports content to make you think... or allow you not to. A newsletter delivered each Saturday. Your information is being handled in accordance with the Email address Subscribe
The Age
26-04-2025
- Sport
- The Age
AFL 2025 round seven LIVE updates: St Kilda Saints, Brisbane Lions face off at Marvel Stadium
Latest posts Latest posts 1.30pm Neale goals The Lions can't find a tall target so their little champion Lachie Neale has roved the ball from a marking pack and snapped a goal. The Saints have landed tackle after tackle but can't clear the ball. Finally, the Lions have made them pay for it. Lions 7, Saints 0 with 13 mins to go in Q1. 1.29pm The Lions miss Joe Daniher... These early moments of the first term show how much the Lions are missing premiership winning forward Joe Daniher who retired after last year's premiership. The Lions have had the better of the field positions and possession while they are regularly intercepting the Saints when they try to exit defence. But they can't find a marking target and that is where they miss Daniher so, so much. It's 8-1 on the inside 50 count according to Fox Footy, yet the Lions have just a point to show for it. Lions 1, Saints 0 with 14 mins to go in Q1. 1.14pm Who will respond? Lacklustre Lions or mauled Saints? By Jon Pierik The Saints have made their way out on to the field. They need to show something today, having slipped since a 3-1 start to the season. Defeats to GWS and the Western Bulldogs have been a reality check for Ross Lyon's men. 'I felt like we dropped our bundle ... yeah, it was a mauling,' a shattered Lyon said of a 71-point loss to the Bulldogs. There are few tougher challenges than the Lions, who are stinging after their loss at home to Collingwood on Easter Thursday. Coach Chris Fagan said his men had been 'lacklustre' against the Magpies. What will their response be? 1.10pm Late change for Lions; subs named By Jon Pierik Brisbane have made a late change, losing key defender Jack Payne (illness) an hour before the bounce. Payne has been replaced by Darcy Gardiner, who will play his first game for the season. Midfielder James Tunstill will be the Lions' starting sub, while veteran Zak Jones will start as the Saints' sub. 1.04pm AFL greats' lessons prep young gun for Brisbane test After spending every day soaking up advice from two of St Kilda's greatest ever midfielders, Hugo Garcia is ready to test his mettle against the Brisbane Lions' champion on-ball brigade. A youthful St Kilda outfit will attempt to bounce back from a disappointing loss to the Western Bulldogs when they host the reigning premiers at Marvel Stadium on Saturday. Brisbane's midfield, headlined by dual Brownlow medallist Lachie Neale, Josh Dunkley and Will Ashcroft, is coming off a loss to Collingwood and will pose a stern test. But it's not one Garcia, still just 19, will shy away from. 'It should be a good challenge for me. I like competing against the best - that brings the best out of myself,' Garcia told AAP. 'It'll be good to compete against a Brownlow medallist like Lachie Neale 'It'll be good to see what he does and hopefully implement that in my game for the future. 'Josh Dunkley is also one of the star players in the competition and Will Ashcroft's an up-and-coming young midfielder, so it'll be good to test myself against those players.' Coming off nine games in his debut season under Ross Lyon in 2024, Garcia has appeared in the Saints' past six games, impressing through the midfield and averaging 16 disposals and four clearances. He's got plenty of experienced heads to guide him. 'It's been great to learn and grow off experienced midfielders in there like Jack Macrae and Jack Steele,' Garcia said. 'They've really helped me develop and become a better footballer. 'Then on the coaching side of things, Robert Harvey and Lenny Hayes have really been helping me learn midfield craft and just getting better as a whole. 'We've got a really talented young group coming through to push each other every day.' Growing up, Garcia admired Collingwood skipper Scott Pendlebury's composure, while he's reaping the benefits of reviewing vision with club great Hayes. But above anything, he credits his improvement to hard work. 'It's a brutal competition and if you're not working hard and not trying to improve every week, you're not going to get very far,' Garcia said. 'I've just put in the hard yards and hopefully you reap the rewards 'A lot of us young players have really bought into Ross's system and had a really good pre-season. So it's good to see us young boys getting a crack at it. 'There's a real hunger within the group to earn a spot in the side and then perform to keep it. 'As each week goes on I think my confidence will keep building.' St Kilda (3-3) have already claimed one big upset this year, beating Geelong, and are ready to take it up to Brisbane (5-1). 'We're very optimistic,' Garica said. 'We think that we can challenge any team in the competition.' St Kilda have regained Dougal Howard and recalled Isaac Keeler while Liam Henry and Arie Schoenmaker were dropped. Brisbane forward Kai Lohmann returns from injury in place of Sam Marshall. 1.03pm Ah Chee, Zorko reach milestones Two Lions premiership players reach milestone matches today when they take on St Kilda. From Lions media: AH CHEE TO PLAY 150 GAMES Brisbane Lions forward Callum Ah Chee will run out for his 150th AFL match against St Kilda at Marvel Stadium today. Ah Chee was initially selected out of Western Australia with Pick eight in the 2015 draft by the Gold Coast SUNS. The versatile playmaker then found his way to the Lions ahead of the 2020 season and has since become a premiership player and fan favourite. AFL LIFE MEMBERSHIP FOR ZORKO Premiership veteran Dayne Zorko achieves AFL Life Membership today. Zorko receives the honour with a combined 300 games across Brisbane Lions (283 premiership games, 14 pre-season games, 2 international matches). 1.03pm Good afternoon G'day everyone. I'm Roy Ward and welcome to our AFL live blog as we follow today's Saturday matches for round seven and continue the Anzac weekend following yesterday's stirring match at the MCG between Collingwood and Essendon. St Kilda and Brisbane kick us off today with a 1.20pm AEST clash at Marvel Stadium followed by Port Adelaide and North Melbourne then the night match at 7.30pm AEST between GWS Giants and Western Bulldogs in Sydney. It should be a super day, enjoy the hours to come.
