It is like the 10-week Covid 19 lay-off never happened.

Although Lachie Neale embarked on a road trip back home to the farm in South Australia and effectively dropped off the grid for a while, he never missed a beat on his return to footy.

Neale received the three votes from the Roar Deal boys and quite possibly earned similar acclaim from the umpires towards the Brownlow medal.

Neale is playing at the same level that saw him claim his first Merrett-Murray medal last season but coach Chris Fagan has admitted the same could not be said for many in the team over the opening two rounds.

The coach’s post-match comments were all about the greater spread of contribution and it was something Neale was happy to elaborate on.

“Some guys found some touch back, Hughie McCluggage was awesome and I think he would even say he was a bit quiet the first couple of games but we know what a star and what a smooth operator he is and he was back to his best,’’ he said.

“Bezz (Jarrod Berry) chimed in with a few goals and the forwards really competed hard.

“And our backs, we know what we are going to get from them, they are a special unit down there led by Harris and Darcy Gardner was great.

“All round it was just a great team performance.’’

The first half was an arm wrestle but after the main break things started to click for the Lions and the fans roared to life.

There were only 2000 in the stadium and Neale said what his ears were hearing did not match what his eyes were seeing.

This week will see that figure increased to 10,000 and he said if that equated to five times the noise, it would be a huge advantage for the side.

He said even though it was a marginal number, it certainly added to the occasion for the players and all of them were desperately hoping there would be a chance to play in front of a sell-out before the season was over.

“It definitely makes it more enjoyable,’’ he said.

“For me, my feelings are excitement I’m looking forward to having 10,000 there, hopefully they don’t give Adelaide too many tickets and it is nearly all Lions fans

I’m excited to pay in front of a reasonable crowd this weekend and hopefully restrictions are eased even further and we can have a full house eventually.’’

“I was surprised, when you look in the stands it still looks pretty bare but you could definitely hear them, especially when we got rolling in the second half and started to play some goof footy. You could hear them get up and about, get excited for tackles, goals, marks.

It was awesome, it was very loud and it will be great to have five times at many this weekend.’’