Neale checks on Ginnivan after Lions fight back to beat Dockers
Lachie Neale had one final message for Jack Ginnivan after the grand final. "Hope your tummy OK my guy."
He left the comment on Ginnivan's Instagram after Brisbane's come-from-behind win over Fremantle in the AFL grand final on Saturday, capping a week where the two players were linked by tribunal drama as much as football, according to ABC News.
The result put another premiership in Brisbane's cabinet. The Lions played in their fourth straight grand final in 2026. Neale celebrated with a photo of himself alongside the club's three premiership cups on Instagram.
Ginnivan answered that post with a cherry emoji. Neale then replied on Ginnivan's own post with the tummy joke. Short. Cheeky. No malice in it.
A week earlier the tone was very different. Neale caught Ginnivan with a punch to the gut, off the ball, in the preliminary final. A preliminary final is the semi-final that decides who reaches the grand final, the championship decider.
The incident drew an initial one-game suspension. That is the AFL's standard process. The Match Review Officer grades the contact, the Tribunal hears a challenge, and a player can take the case to an appeals board.
Neale did. The appeals board overturned the ban under "compelling and exceptional circumstances" and he was fined instead. That decision freed him to face Fremantle on Saturday.
The appeal heard Neale had a clean suspension record across 321 games. Ginnivan was uninjured in the incident. Nine other players were cited for similar off-the-ball incidents during the year.
Neale started his career at the Dockers before eight seasons at Brisbane. The Dockers is Fremantle's other name. So Saturday's win came against his first club.
What makes this stand out is how fast the story cooled. A gut punch that threatened to rule a dual Brownlow medallist out of a grand final ended with emojis and a stomach joke. For fans, this means no lingering feud to carry into next season. Just a flag for Brisbane, and a laugh shared online after it.
