AFL 2019: Lachie Neale’s dig at Dermott Brereton after coming to bench early against Port Adelaide

Brisbane star Lachie Neale had an eye-popping response after Hawks great Dermott Brereton questioned his toughness on Sunday.

Brisbane star Lachie Neale has shown the full effect of Port Adelaide’s much-discussed niggling tactics from Sunday’s game — and given a Hawthorn legend a cheeky clip on the way.

Neale was targeted by the Power during the early stages of the Lions’ win at the Adelaide Oval, with the likes of Cameron Sutcliffe and Dougal Howard attempting to physical intimidate him.

During the first term, Neale came to the bench to be assessed by the club’s medical staff. He was followed by tagger — and good mate — Sutcliffe, which drew a strong response from Lions veteran Mitch Robinson and coach Chris Fagan.

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Five-time premiership Hawk Dermott Brereton in commentary said he would’ve liked Neale to have stayed out on the ground during and “take” the heat.

“I want him out there. Let him take it. He’s a senior player,” Brereton told Fox Footy during

“I’d like the blokes to say, ‘Hey I’m playing league football’.

“It’s a man’s game. It’s hard, it’s tough … I’ve got to stand up and take this.

“Let him go out there, take the heat.”

Lachie Neale shows the result of a first-quarter incident.

However Neale copped an eye poke during Port Adelaide’s harassment of him that led to a bust blood vessel — an issue Neale showed off on Instagram on Wednesday.

In a light-hearted story post that included a selfie showing the damage to his eye, Neale responded to Brereton, writing: “Sorry @dermottbrereton for getting my eye check Q1.” He added in a wink-face emoji.

Earlier this week, Neale posted a short video of him and Sutcliffe catching up. Neale panned his camera to Sutcliffe after showing a newspaper headline that read: “Up and down Port.”

Neale, one of the contenders to take out this year’s Brownlow Medal, is set to take on North Melbourne this Saturday night at the Gabba.

Kangaroos interim coach Rhyce Shaw said he wasn’t deterred by Port Adelaide’s attempts to rough up star Lion Lachie Neale on the weekend backfiring spectacularly, insisting his players would bring the same physical aggression.

“We just want to play our brand of football and I think we’ve made that really clear over the last six weeks that we’ve got certain standards and certain ways we want to go about things,” he said.

“We are hard at the contest and hard at the ball and that’s what we’re about, there’s no other way we want to play the game.”

— with AAP