AFL 2024: Dayne Zorko says Lachie Neale training ‘as well as ever’

A Brisbane star has claimed Lachie Neale is training as well as he has all season despite travelling home from last week’s semi-final wearing a moon boot.

Dayne Zorko said the Lions co-captain was building strongly towards Saturday’s preliminary final against Geelong as his teammates prepared to help him fight another hard tag.

Neale was restricted to 19 disposals by GWS stopper Toby Bedford in the Lions’ come-from-behind win, and aggravated an existing heel concern when he was trod on in the final minutes of the game.

“The moon boot was off Sunday, it’s been like that for the majority of the year with Lachie, he’s had a couple of setbacks here and there, but it got trod on really late in the game, and that was just there purely to take a bit of pressure off his foot,” Zorko said at the MCG ahead of Brisbane’s captain’s run on Friday.

“He got rid of it Sunday once he left the airport, I think he was just playing it up for you guys, to be honest.

“Honestly, he’s trained the best he’s trained (all season) this week, so hopefully that’s a good indication.

“His routine has been pretty similar since about round 8 or 9 now, so for us it’s just the norm, but I guess for the outside world … the medical staff have done such a great job of looking after him all year.”

Geelong could send Tom Atkins or Oisin Mullin to the dual Brownlow medallist after other teams managed to limit his influence this season, but Zorko said the Lions would be ready.

“(Neale) cops it every week so it will be nothing new – we’ll certainly plan for it,” he said.

After successfully reinventing himself as a halfback at age 35 in an All-Australian campaign, Zorko was adamant the Lions could overcome finals hoodoos at the MCG and against Geelong.

“We’ve played some really good footy here (at the MCG) … we might not have got the results, but we’ve played well enough here,” he said.

“We’ve been close on a number of occasions, the result just hasn’t gone our way, but we certainly don’t fear it – it’s pretty much the same dimensions as the Gabba.

“(Geelong has) big-time players … when we set out on our journey, we wanted to be like the Geelong and Richmond (sides) that were dominant in that era.

“They’ve got some really extraordinary players that have performed in big moments … we certainly look up to them, but ultimately we need to get a result tomorrow night to overcome that hurdle.”

Zorko hailed coach Chris Fagan’s effort to steer the Lions into another preliminary final as “one of the better coaching performances across his career”.

“At 2-5, you were coming from everywhere for us, so his ability just to steady the ship, put a lot of trust in us to dig ourselves out of it, keep our game plan really simple … he showed us statistics that really back up where we are as a football club, and although our results weren’t going the right way, our numbers were actually better than in the previous year,” he said.

“We didn’t change anything, we didn’t reinvent the wheel … I reckon it’s been one of his better coaching performances across his career.”