Stories
Brisbane teammate and best friend Lincoln McCarthy pens a piece about newly crowned AFL Players’ MVP Lachie Neale and what makes him such a professional when it comes to his own individual game.
I’ve known Lachie for 16 years. We first met when we were playing junior basketball together at around age 10.
I grew up in Bordertown, on the border of South Australia and Victoria, while Lachie was only an hour down the round in Naracoorte.
After first playing basketball together, this carried on to school sports and regional sports – footy, cricket and basketball – throughout our teenage years.
We both moved down to Adelaide for school and started to play for SANFL club Glenelg.
We were both just young blokes at Glenelg keen to reach our dreams of playing in the AFL.
But I could tell early on that Lachie didn’t want to just make an AFL list, he was determined and driven to be a great player as quickly as he could be.
When we went our separate ways in the draft – he went to Fremantle and I went to Geelong – I was very confident that he’d do everything he could to reach those heights as quickly as he could.
Lachie played 11 games in his first season and 12 matches in his second, before he really got going in his third season and became a very consistent AFL player.
The first couple of years are different where you’re finding your feet, but he has this obsessive nature where he would’ve compared himself to the best and I have no doubt that’s why he became such a good player so quickly.
I would find that obsession to be a little bit draining if I tried to be like him, but guys like Lachie are really good at taking that approach and comparing themselves to the best so they can match it with anyone, and in my opinion, that’s generally the make-up of a great player.
![](http://www.aflplayers.com.au/app/uploads/2020/09/Glenelg-boys-760x438.jpg)