Lachie Neale tribunal appeal LIVE: New twist as Lions star attempts to overturn grand final suspension

There has been a new twist in Lachie Neale’s fight to play in Saturday’s grand final.

The Lions could be forced to focus on Neale’s history of never having been suspended, rather than contesting the intentional strike finding before the AFL appeals board, after reports that new vision had surfaced that is likely to be damaging to his case.

The previously unseen vision is said to show more clearly the Neale gut punch on Hawk Jack Ginnivan, which Neale had described as more of a body check.

The AFL and Neale’s legal counsel have both been contacted for comment on the purported vision, from an optical tracking trial being conducted by Champion Data which involves 46 cameras feeding into a sophisticated data-capture system.

Champion is the AFL’s official data provider and is 49 per cent owned by the league.

The vision could potentially prevent the Lions from arguing Neale did not intentionally strike Ginnivan.

Neale has played 320 games without being suspended.

But, as pointed out during the initial hearing, Neale has previously been cited eight times by the tribunal and either fined or warned. Several of those times were for striking the body of opponents.

AFL counsel Andrew Woods QC is attempting to have the new vision of the incident shown at the hearing from an optical tracking trial which had additional cameras at the MCG on Saturday.

Woods told the hearing they became aware of the vision on Wednesday afternoon and immediately shared it with the Lions.

But the appeals board will need to allow them to show it as it is new evidence, not seen during the original case.

The board can allow new evidence if it couldn’t have been obtained before the original hearing.

Richard Loveridge is the chair of the board with Stephen Jurica and Wayne Henwood the other members.

Neale’s counsel Adrian Anderson is now making his comments on whether the vision should be allowed and he doesn’t sound impressed.

We wrote earlier in the blog about this vision which, reportedly, will make it hard to argue down the intentional strike finding.

OPINION | The most commonly uttered words in football this week related to Lachie Neale, which is quite a feat given Hawthorn, abuse and umpires would top any Google News search.

The first was the refrain: “You shouldn’t miss a grand final for that.”

But it also commonly included a rejoinder: “Players have got a week for that all year. He has to go.”

The third was pithier: “He’s lucky they took the good bloke defence out of compelling and exceptional circumstances.”

Few people would have been more invested in the Neale tribunal decision than Greg Swann. It was Swann who started last season as the Brisbane CEO and ended it as the AFL football boss who personally drove a rule change to elevate minor gut punches to a level demanding a one-match suspension, rather than a fine.

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There has been a new twist in Lachie Neale’s fight to play in Saturday’s grand final.

The Lions could be forced to focus on Neale’s history of never having been suspended, rather than contesting the intentional strike finding before the AFL appeals board, after reports that new vision had surfaced that is likely to be damaging to his case.

The previously unseen vision is said to show more clearly the Neale gut punch on Hawk Jack Ginnivan, which Neale had described as more of a body check.

The AFL and Neale’s legal counsel have both been contacted for comment on the purported vision, from an optical tracking trial being conducted by Champion Data which involves 46 cameras feeding into a sophisticated data-capture system.

Lachie Neale and his teammates arrived in Melbourne on Wednesday to a mixture of Lions faithful, and media waiting to hear just what he’d say about the one-match ban set to rule him out of Saturday’s grand final against his former club, Fremantle.

The Lions confirmed earlier in the day that they would appeal the decision handed down by the AFL tribunal on Tuesday night in a last-ditch bid to free the superstar onballer to play.

Neale, coach Chris Fagan, and the rest of the Lions arrived shortly before 4pm to a sea of people. While Fagan greeted fans warmly, and Will Ashcroft and Hugh McCluggage posed for photos, the man of the moment, Neale, approached the cameras with his head down and face partially concealed by a yellow Bears cap.

He gave a brief statement to reporters, confirming the club’s appeal.

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