Brisbane star Dayne Zorko says he expects the Lions to do everything possible to fight Lachie Neale’s grand final ban after the Lions star’s suspension was upheld.

The Lions look set to be without dual Brownlow Medallist Neale for Saturday’s showpiece against Fremantle after he was slapped with a one-game ban for striking Hawthorn forward Jack Ginnivan in Brisbane’s heart-stopping preliminary final win.

Following a marathon hearing which lasted more than four hours, the AFL tribunal upheld the decision to scrub former Fremantle on-baller Neale out of Brisbane’s fourth-straight grand final appearance.

Brisbane can still appeal the suspension in the hopes of freeing their star for what could be a third-straight flag triumph and speaking with Nova 100 Melbourne’s Jase, Lauren & Clint, Zorko said he felt for his teammate.

“I haven’t spoken to him. I can imagine, like most of us or all of us, he’s really disappointed with the outcome of it all but the club will do everything in their best interest to take it one step further I assume.

“I haven’t spoken to anyone from the club about it, but I imagine we’ll probably go another step forward and see what can happen after that.

The lengthy deliberation consisted of a plus-two hour heading and then required more than two hours of deliberations before the tribunal told Neale his suspension had been upheld.

Zorko said while he channel surfed while waiting for the decision, the wait would have kept the clubs on tenterhooks.

“There would have been a few of us that waited up...I was flicking over to the AFL app every now and then to see if there was an update.

“But I saw the result and then and then went to bed. There’s not much we can do now other than obviously appeal it. But there was a few of us that would have been waiting by our phones to see the result.”