Brisbane have attempted to bat away a new “distraction they really don’t need” on the eve of the AFL finals with Lachie Neale’s private life back in the spotlight.
Estranged wife Jules Neale and their former friend Tess Crosley have sat down for unrelated podcasts detailing the Neale marriage breakdown and its fallout.
The Lions learned of the Jules podcast through Neale’s manager, who is in active talks with multiple clubs about the dual premiership player’s future.
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“The media department found out about the Tess Crosley (episode),” Caroline Wilson reported on Channel 7’s The Agenda Setters.
“Quite extraordinary timing to think they’re both coming out on the same day … I make no judgement on either of these women, but it just amazes me that that you would want to do this, I’ve got to say.”
Wilson said Brisbane had privately made two points about Neale and the timing of the “salacious” podcasts.
“One is that Lachie has been extraordinary all year, despite everything that’s been going on in his private life,” she said.
“He’ll be one of the top three in their best-and-fairest. Halfway through the year he was probably leading their best-and-fairest. He’s been amazing.
“He’s obviously very good at handling this sort of pressure in terms of his game time. I can’t comment on the off-field, but they feel that this is a distraction that they really don’t need.”
Neale’s former Lions teammate Luke Hodge agreed “it’s not ideal” before the finals.
But he believes, having rolled through the saga at the start of the season, “they’re switched on enough” to manage being in the headlines again
“I think the relationship that they’ve got with Lachie Neale, and obviously their families, they’ve been through it, they’ve spoken about it,” Hodge said.
“And I think what they’ve seen on field, of course, especially the last six or seven weeks, that it hasn’t fazed them too much or affected them too much.
“So they’ll be hoping the next five weeks would would be exactly the same.”
The podcasts arrive not just with the finals campaign ahead of Brisbane but Neale weighing up his next move.
The 33-year-old has long appeared bound for the exit door but Wilson revealed the Lions have never had a new contract offer on the table to try to sway him.
Neale blindsided Brisbane when he toured Collingwood HQ the day before the Lions’ heavy defeat to Carlton at the start of the month.
“There have been conversations going on all year. Obviously Brisbane have not told him they want him to go,” Wilson said.
“Lachie Neale has been talking since the start of the year and Chris Fagan, I guess, opened the batting by saying they would understand if he did want to go and live in Perth to be near his children, where of course his former wife Jules has moved.”
But that high-profile Victorian interest from the Magpies has headlined the chase for months, in addition to some from the two Adelaide clubs and West Coast.
The Eagles are “on the verge of making a big offer over the next week”, Wilson added.
Brisbane, meanwhile, have been all in on trying to keep Zac Bailey, who has fielded a monster deal from the Crows.
“It’s just interesting that in juxtaposition with the Lions trying to keep Zac Bailey — and we know they significantly upped the ante in terms of time and money in June this year — that there has been no specific offer for Lachie Neale,” Wilson said.
“And it’s just going to be quite interesting.
“Brisbane clearly think he’s going, because the fact they haven’t even offered him a contract, they haven’t even put a contract on the table, even though they’re talking to him in an unofficial sense, tells me that they know he’s gone.”
Asked if it was a win-win to now let Neale leave, he suggested a disconnect of sorts in Brisbane’s initial expectations and motivations for accepting the veteran’s likely exit versus the situation now with premiership rivals Collingwood and Adelaide keen.
“At the start when they said that they were open for Lachie to go to Perth to be close to his family, I think that’s where they initially thought that this is a pathway that we can probably push some of that money towards some of the kids,” Hodge said.
“They’ve got so many young stars that are coming through that they could push money towards them. And then the top-up towards Bailey is another option for them.
“The money that’s getting offered towards Lachie of a million bucks a year (from rivals), there’s no way that the Brisbane Lions can offer that.”
Wilson added there remains a high level of uncertainty around Bailey’s decision.
“The longer it goes on, the more worrying it is,” she said.
“One day I think Brisbane think he’s staying, the next day they think he’s going.”
