Geelong coach Chris Scott says a “culmination of issues” with the AFL led to his post-qualifying final blow-up that was reported to have left an AFL staff member in tears.
Facing the media for the first time since that incident today, which also followed Bailey Smith’s run-in with a photographer at training last week, Scott rejected suggestions he had an issue with visually-impaired reporter Matt Lee.
“I didn’t handle a certain situation as well as I would have liked to, and let my frustrations get the better of me,” he said.
“And for that, I spoke to the person involved. And even from there, they kind of acknowledged, ‘OK, there are sort of some frustrations that built up’.
“But for me specifically, taking it away from the we, me, I should have handled that situation better.
“But I also acknowledged that it was a private conversation.
“And sometimes private conversations become public. And it would become a lot easier if you actually did litigate all those issues in an attempt to help people understand why those frustrations were so acute.”
Scott also said a “build-up of things” played a role in Smith’s verbal tirade at Geelong Advertiser photographer Alison Wynd.
That includes Scott and Smith being far from impressed when what they thought was a private conversation at training was made public mid-season.
Scott admits he would have gone down the phone call route to apologise to Wynd, with Smith expressing his remorse via a text message.
“I’m approaching 50; I’m probably a phone call guy. Yeah, that would be my preference,” Scott said.
“But again, the way I try to think about these things is especially the intention is the most important thing.
“The way Bailey responded in that moment – and again, there’s been a sort of build-up of things that have led Bailey to believe that he should be less trusting than I think he should be, for example.
“So we’ll work through those things.
“I don’t think it’s the time to explain how it got to that point with him, but be clear: we protect our people and we protect who we think we want to be.
“(But) that doesn’t extend to any sort of defense for not handling yourself in that moment of frustration as you would like to.”
Scott is confident that, despite the spotlight that has shone on Geelong for the past week, it hasn’t impacted the club’s preparation for tomorrow’s preliminary final clash with Hawthorn.
“I don’t think you should underestimate one, my ability not to be aware of some of this stuff, and two, our ability to concentrate. on what we need to concentrate on,” he said.
“(I’m) completely aware that it has been interesting to other people, and probably the perception could be it’s distracting, but that would just be a guess.
“But I think I said something to the effect of we’ll know after we play Brisbane whether the soft draw was an issue, and it’d be the same with this one.
“Again, I’m worldly enough to know that if I have a bad day in the box, it’ll probably be perceived that it’s because I was distracted.
“Now, I guarantee you that’s not the case.”
X: @krockfootball
