IF YOU look closely when Lachie Neale fumbles a ball in-game, you might see the dual Brownlow medallist admonishing himself.
"I know straight away," Neale tells AFL.com.au with a grin.
"I yell at myself when I fumble. I'll yell out 'Lachie, for f***'s sake" or something like that.
"Even at training I yell at myself all the time if I fumble. It's just a habit I got into.
"If I keep fumbling, I won't have a job. I've got to make sure I'm taking it cleanly. That's my job, to be the cleanest player in the comp and help my team."
It's a mindset and job the soon-to-be 32-year-old has done as well as any player in the AFL for the past decade.
You see, Neale almost never fumbles. His one-hand pick-up at top pace in the opening quarter of the Grand Final against Sydney was anything but luck.
Since 2021, no player has gathered more ground balls than Neale. He's simply the best player at ground level in the AFL, and here's why.
Determined to improve
Despite being listed as 177cm now, Neale looks a fraction on the shorter side compared to the average midfielder in the AFL.
It's a reality he's dealt with since his early days of playing footy. He was always "small and skinny" but loved playing against the older and bigger kids.
It gave him a chance to figure out different ways to get the footy and use "fast feet", although he didn't call it that at that age.
In the schoolyard playing 'marks up', Neale wasn't flying into packs, he was sniffing around at ground level and picking up crumbs.
Neale was obsessed with improving.
Just prior to accepting a scholarship with St Peter's College in Adelaide in Year 10, he struck up a relationship with then Crow, Bernie Vince. (Neale's father, Robbie, had coached Vince at Border Districts before he was drafted into the AFL).
He called Vince and asked for the Crows' off-season training program so he could test himself against AFL standards.
He had to improve his speed.
"At that stage if you were small and not fast, you weren't going to get drafted," Neale said.
"I'm still not that fast but I worked on it a fair bit that year to get it to an acceptable level."
Taking his chance
Neale was drafted by Fremantle with pick No.58 in 2011 and walked into a Dockers team loaded with midfield talent.
David Mundy was midway through his stellar career. Michael Barlow was well-established and over his broken leg. There was also a young Nat Fyfe, two years into his career and "unreal" at ground level. Ryan Crowley was another regular.
And all these players roving to a dominant ruckman in Aaron Sandilands.
In-and-out of the senior team his first few years, Neale would take a jump in 2014 following some "tough love" from Ross Lyon and dedicated training with recently retired Dockers assistant coach Brett Kirk.
"He didn't like me beating him," Neale said of his sessions with Kirk. "It was really competitive.
"I just learnt so much about stoppage craft. He wasn't a massive guy either, but he just knew how to use his body.
"I thought 'far out, this guy is competitive'.
"I just learnt so much about where to position, how to make your opponent vulnerable at stoppage. A lot of credit goes to him and the hours he put in with me.
"Heading into fourth year (2015), I was realising I could play at that level and that pre-season Kirky gave me a lot of belief. Ross did too. He said I could be a top-liner in the comp if I wanted to put my head down.
"I did hours and hours of ground balls and repeat efforts. Ground ball, get it back to the coach, go again."
Mindset of a champion
Obsessed with improving since his young years, Neale's thirst for getting better was only on the rise.
An All-Australian squad nomination at the end of the 2015 season fuelled his belief that he could become the best ground-level player in the competition.
The years with Kirk ingrained habits that still sit with him today.
"The biggest thing I see players do with ground balls, you can do all the easy rolls, but you need the pressure from someone else," Neale said.
"Kirky would be on my back and trying to tackle me, so it's putting yourself under pressure in game situations as much as you can.
"I get you can't always do it because your body would be too fatigued, but when you can, putting yourself in those really hard situations.
"You're going to fumble a heap of them, but that's what makes you better, you've got to fail to get better.
"It might feel good getting 10 easy ground balls … then on game day you have someone hanging off your back at a stoppage."
Even during the pre-season, Neale builds his weeks up as if he's in-season.
Higher-volume running and easier touch work earlier in the week, and then the competitive, more physical training later in the week.
"It doesn't have to be long either. I think if you do five or 10 minutes of solid work on it, it just sets you up for the weekend ahead," he said.
Neale has worked with Cameron Bruce as his midfield coach at Brisbane since late in 2021.
Bruce, himself a 234-game veteran at Melbourne and Hawthorn who added coaching experience at the Hawks and Carlton prior to joining the Lions, said it was no surprise Neale was one of the best players in the competition.
"He's always searching for ways to improve his game and is never satisfied," Bruce explained.
"He's always touching a footy, always looking to do extra hands and ball control.
"He's very harsh on himself and very aware on when he should be better. He doesn't need to see positives, he just needs to see where he can get better. He thrives on feedback.
"He does the same thing over and over and over, and puts time and effort in to master things, so that when it comes to the game and high-pressure situations, he has absolute confidence he's done the work and it happens. It's no fluke.
"If you come to training and count who touches the ball the most, it's Lachie."
A master of his craft
You can either use statistics or just watch games – Neale is not only the most prolific ground-level player in the AFL, he's the best.
No one has more ground-ball gets in home and away matches since 2021. Tom Liberatore, who Neale is in awe of, has a few more clearances, while Patrick Cripps and Clayton Oliver have more contested possessions.
The off-field perfection of Neale's craft began at Fremantle, where he fine-tuned his hand-eye coordination on a computerised game that would demand he hit one colour as multiple options were flashing on the screen.
It was all about deciphering options rapidly – decision-making.
He's tried different apps to test his memory and problem-solving; "brain games", as he calls them.
His physical evolution has also gone up a cog since heading east to Brisbane at the end of 2018.
Neale doesn't like doing simple things. It's all about putting himself under pressure. It's why Bruce and the club's development coach Scott Borlace have had to get inventive with drills.
One such test in the club's huge indoor kick room, known as 'The Cage', puts three different colour hula hoops – green, red and yellow – up on netting that surrounds the artificial turf field.
With Neale's back to the hoops, Borlace will call a colour, throw him a ball, and then watch as the six-time best and fairest winner instantly fires a handball into the correct hoop.
"It's almost impossible to get it right," Neale said.
"I don't even really look, and just over-my-shoulder try and hit the colour.
"We do 10 of those and I might only get three or four, but I won't stop until I get five or six. It's just putting yourself under real pressure.
"I'll make everything a competition and make it really hard for myself. Games aren't easy, so why should this be?
"People can float through and say they've done 20 minutes of touch, but was it meaningful and did you do it with purpose? Or did you just go out there and flip the ball around a bit to tick it off?"
Neale is a fan of Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers, which posits the key to achieving true expertise in any skill is to practise for at least 10,000 hours.
"I'm probably not going to get to 10,000 hours on every skill, but getting to as many repetitions and hours and minutes in different situations, not just ground balls and handballs, but putting yourself in difficult situations as often as possible.
"I'm a bit of a sicko in a way.
"I have to be the best. It's built into my mindset, but I think it's helped me, and hopefully helped the team because guys see that and jump on board as well, which drives me to new levels."
It's not all about the numbers
Although not at his absolute peak every week, Neale shows no signs of slowing down.
Eleven games into his 14th season, the premiership captain is averaging 26.8 disposals and six clearances, and has been instrumental in at least six of Brisbane's eight wins.
He doesn't judge his performance on numbers, though.
"It's probably my quick feet and repeat efforts," he said.
"I can have games where I have 25 to 35 (disposals) and they're shit games, they're bog average.
"For me it's about 'did we get the job done as a midfield group?' I'm the midfielder that's in there (centre bounces) the most, so I take on a fair bit of that responsibility.
"I don't have to have 15 clearances any more. We've got Hughy (McCluggage) and 'Dunks' (Josh Dunkley) and Will (Ashcroft) now. 'Bails' (Zac Bailey) and Cam Rayner too. We share the load really well.
"My individual game, I can see on the tape if I've got a heap of energy around the contest and quick feet and getting to those spilled balls quicker than my opponent.
"And my spread from stoppage. I can tell in-game if I'm flat-footed. If I'm first to leave out of stoppage, I generally impact the game really well offensively and defensively."
Neale says there's a handful of ground-level players around the competition that he looks up to. There's Liberatore, Caleb Serong, Liam Baker, Nick Daicos and teammate Will Ashcroft.
He saves special mention for Fremantle's All-Australian Serong, calling him a "star", but saying he's not quite ready to hand over his ground-ball crown just yet.
"I take pride in it and still want to be known as the cleanest player in the comp," he said.
Next time you watch the Lions, keep an eye out for how many times Neale admonishes himself – it won't be often.
