{"id":51967,"date":"2021-03-31T00:27:57","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T00:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=51967"},"modified":"2021-03-31T02:57:05","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T02:57:05","slug":"fagan-speaks-to-afl-over-ugly-neale-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=51967","title":{"rendered":"Fagan speaks to AFL over ugly Neale treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan<\/a> has revealed he's spoken to the AFL about unfair treatment of star midfielders in the wake of the Geelong Cats' approach to Lachie Neale last Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark O'Connor limited the reigning Brownlow medallist to just three first-half touches and 16 for the night, in a tagging performance helped by the entire team's efforts to rough him up at any opportunity.<\/p>\n

Their tactics drew the ire of Match Review Officer Michael Christian when he slapped Rohan with a two-match ban for striking Neale off the ball.<\/p>\n

Fagan said the AFL needed to closely monitor how teams attacked key midfielders.<\/p>\n

"I have spoken to people at the AFL just to have a little look at it," Fagan told SEN.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

"It wasn't a major complaint at all, more on behalf of all midfielders who happen to get tagged.<\/p>\n

"I don't think anyone minds if it's just a fair dinkum contest, but blocks and holds off the ball – that's a different matter."<\/p>\n

\"Lachie<\/p>\n

Neale developed into a prolific ball-winner in his seven years at Fremantle and has become even more dominant at Brisbane, averaging 28.7 disposals per game since joining the Lions ahead of season 2019.<\/p>\n

The South Australian polled 31 Brownlow Medal votes last year to beat the second-placed Travis Boak by 10.<\/p>\n

"Lachie Neale got tagged I reckon in half the games he played last year. Some days he came out on top, some days he didn't. He's accustomed to that sort of attention," Fagan said.<\/p>\n

"My personal view is that by and large he deals with it well. He probably didn't in the first half last week. I thought his second half was much, much better.<\/p>\n

\"Lachie<\/p>\n

"The umpires are looking closely at forwards v backs and those contests at the moment. They need to look closely at the contests around stoppages, to see whether players are getting a fair run at the ball.<\/p>\n

"Because my understanding of the rule is if people grab you or block you when you're a certain distance away from the ball, that's not legal – and there was a bit of that the other night.<\/p>\n

"O'Connor did a terrific job by and large, but I just think that needs to be looked at a little more closely by the umpires."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan has revealed he's spoken to the AFL about unfair treatment of star midfielders in the wake of the Geelong Cats' […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51967"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51969,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51967\/revisions\/51969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}