Brisbane midfield ace Lachie Neale is eager to deliver a big AFL display against GWS regardless of whether or not he’s facing some close attention from Giant Matt de Boer.

The ex-Fremantle teammates were matched up in last year’s semi-final, with de Boer given the job of tagging Neale in a game the Giants would win by a mere three points.

Neale is preparing for de Boer to be matched up against him again when the two teams meet at Giants Stadium on Saturday.

“I’ll plan for it, but whether or not it happens, I’m not too sure,” Neale said.

“They’ve got some great midfielders so it’s whether they want to put a stopper in there.

“We saw last year I might have got a bit more attention in the second half of last year, but we won all those games I was tagged in I reckon.

“Teams can do it but we’ve got midfield depth that can cover me if I’m having a bit of an off day.”

Despite picking up 26 disposals and a goal in last weekend’s 27-point loss to Geelong, Neale felt he’d not performed to his usual high standard as the Cats blew away the Lions in a third-quarter mauling.

Geelong booted seven goals in the third term to blow the Lions away in a performance that Neale says wasn’t “AFL standard”.

He’s out to bounce back against the Giants.

“I want to sort of go in and get my hands a bit dirtier than I did last week,” he said.

“I look forward to the challenge if he (de Boer) comes in and if not, I look forward to just playing footy.”

As to how de Boer has risen to become one of the game’s elite taggers, Neale says it’s a simple combination of two key elements.

“He’s one of the fittest blokes that I know from the Fremantle days. I think that’s carried on over to GWS and he’s super strong as well,” Neale said.

“He’s sort of got those two components that make a tagger really hard to break.

“Some you can run around if they’re not as fit as you, others you can beat them around the ball with your inside sort of prowess, but he’s a super strong guys as well.”