LACHIE Neale was reduced to crawling around his house at times in the past two months, so painful was his foot injury.
He not only needed painkilling injections prior to, and at half-time, of matches during that span, but also before Thursday main training sessions throughout the finals' series.
With his team's season in the balance, there was no way the two-time Brownlow medallist was missing any time.
"During the week, I was almost in tears," Neale told AFL.com.au.
"Even after Thursday this week I had to lay down and couldn't put any weight on it for an hour.
"It's been painful."
The day after Brisbane's pulsating preliminary final win over Geelong, Neale had an MRI to assess the damage, but the Lions' co-captain did not want to see the results.
He had no idea how significant the injury was heading into Saturday's Grand Final win over Sydney and it made little difference to his performance.
Neale was sublime in the 60-point triumph, finishing second to Will Ashcroft in Norm Smith Medal voting with game highs in disposals (35), contested possessions (18) and centre clearances (six).
He barely fumbled a ball all day.
"At the start of the last quarter something snapped in my foot, that's why I was hobbling late," he said.
"I'm not sure what it is yet. I couldn't feel a lot of my foot, so I had no idea what it is.
"If it was start of the year I would have taken maybe a month or six weeks off, but because it came on late in the year I wasn't going to take a rest."
His wife Jules said it was distressing seeing her husband in such discomfort at home.
"I said 'Babe, why don't you take a week off?' It just goes to show how stubborn he is," she said with a huge smile.
Neale will meet with a surgeon on Tuesday to figure out what's next.
"I know it's a throwaway line saying you'd trade everything away for one (premiership), but the last hour has been one of the most incredible hours of my life, so 100 per cent you'd throw everything in the bin for one of these (premiership medal)," he said.
"It feels amazing.
"I've just got an overwhelming sense of pride for the group from where we've come from, after the heartbreak of last year, getting smashed at the start of the year, and the back half of the year was something special.
"I'm just so proud of everyone involved at the club."
