Lachie Neale will remain suspended for Brisbane’s AFL grand final against Fremantle on Saturday after the tribunal rejected his evidence as “inconsistent” in a landmark case.

The dual Brownlow medallist can still play only if the Lions overturn the ruling at the AFL appeals board. Brisbane has until noon on Wednesday to lodge a notice of appeal, with any hearing likely to take place on Thursday.

After a dramatic 4½-hour hearing on Tuesday night, the tribunal upheld the charge and also dismissed calls for the penalty to be reduced because of exceptional and compelling circumstances.

Neale had been offered a one-match ban for striking Hawthorn’s Jack Ginnivan during Saturday night’s preliminary final. The incident happened off the ball and match review officer Michael Christian graded it as intentional conduct, medium impact and body contact.

The 33-year-old contested the suspension, arguing that what happened was not a strike but a body check. The two-time premiership captain said the contact came from his shoulder and chest.

Neale said Ginnivan “might have taken a bit of a dive to get a free kick”.

“My shoulder made contact with his body and shoulder first and my arm wrapped around Jack,” he said.

“But I didn’t feel like I was striking him at all. It was more a bump or body-check.”

His counsel, Adrian Anderson, also argued the act should not be classified as a strike.

“Whilst first-flush looking at this vision it does look like it is a punch to the guts, a careful and close analysis of the vision, and consideration of what Lachie Neale says, reaches the conclusion that it is not,” Anderson said.

Anderson also argued that if the tribunal decided Neale had struck Ginnivan, then the ‘exceptional and compelling circumstance’ clause should be applied. He pointed to the Scott Pendlebury case from March, when the Collingwood great had a one-match suspension for rough conduct reduced to a fine under that clause.

Pendlebury had never been suspended or faced the tribunal in his 21-year career. Neale, across 15 years, had also never previously been banned.

But tribunal chair Jeff Gleeson KC rejected Neale’s account of the incident.

“We find that this was a forceful blow delivered with a swinging arm and an open hand,” Gleeson said.

“When played at normal speed, it appears clear to us that this was, to use the common vernacular, a strike to the guts.

“We are comfortably satisfied that this is what occurred; we find that this is what Neale intended.

“We have listened carefully to Mr Neale’s evidence but we find it was inconsistent in key respects with what we saw on the video and, to that extent, we do not accept it.”

Gleeson also pointed out that Neale, despite never having been suspended, had previously been found guilty of eight reportable offences, including three for striking. Each of those incidents resulted in sanctions short of a ban.

“The purpose of the guideline is to stamp out this very sort of conduct. Neale ignored it and he knew the consequences,” Gleeson said.

“In the end, Neale delivered an intentional strike, off the ball, to an unsuspecting opponent.

“To use the language that has been used more than once this evening, Neale intended to strike him on the guts … and he did strike him in the guts.

“Being of Neale’s outstanding record does not render a one-match suspension for that act inappropriate or unreasonable.”