Source :- THE AGE NEWS
Chris Scott says Geelong won’t try to rein in the behaviour of enigmatic runner Bailey Smith after he played the villain role to perfection in the Cats’ seven-point win over Hawthorn in an Easter Monday classic in front of a record home-and-away crowd for the two teams.
Smith picked up 28 disposals and earned the ire of the crowd when he shoved the football in the face of unsuspecting Hawk Jarman Impey as the pair crossed the boundary line in the second quarter.
What’s that: Bailey Smith has played up to the crowd.Credit: Getty Images
It led to a free kick and Smith admitting on Channel Seven post-game that it was an action he regretted, with the crowd booing his every move from that point on.
“My suggestion is that the crowd loved it, the AFL loved it, and I reckon Bailey loves it as well. If the suggestion is that we should try to make him boring and vanilla, then we will rail against that,” Scott said.
Scott said the incident with Impey was minor and Smith’s first noticeable on-field indiscretion since he made his debut for the Cats.
“If there is a pattern there that we need to address, then we will. I’m not sitting here saying, ‘If you get bumped when the play is stopped then you should whack them in the head with the footy’, but, again, in the scheme of things, there was another example today, so which one are you going to focus on?” Scott said.
That other example was a Conor Nash coathanger that knocked out Cats forward Gryan Miers during the third quarter. The incident, which occurred at a stoppage when Nash flung his arm at Miers as the Geelong forward grabbed the ball and struck him in the head, is likely to be assessed at the tribunal.
Nash’s coach Sam Mitchell said, given that Miers was concussed, he expected the midfielder to face scrutiny. He also said the incident probably impacted on Nash, who is not known for that sort of action.
“His numbers certainly dwindled after that,” Mitchell said.
Scott asked reporters for their assessment of the Nash-Miers incident, rather than offer his own interpretation, but agreed with a comparison to a recent incident involving Fremantle’s Patrick Voss, which saw the Docker suspended for three matches.
Balls up: Bailey Smith and Jarman Impey get into it.Credit: Seven
“I wouldn’t argue against [that],” he said. “I don’t think it helps me elaborate too much.”
Scott said Miers would miss next week against Carlton due to the concussion, but he was in good spirits.
The two incidents left spectators with plenty to discuss, but Mitchell was more focused on the uncharacteristic skill errors that cost his team the chance to beat the Cats. James Sicily’s kicking was off all day, including kicking the ball out of bounds on the full when having a set shot in the last quarter, while Jack Gunston was also inaccurate.
Nick Watson missed a set shot from straight in front, which would have given the Hawks the lead late in the game, while constant turnovers kept Geelong ahead as the Hawks pressed.
“Hopefully it’s an outlier,” Mitchell said. “Your game style relies on hitting the kicks that you should. The amount of time we were caught off-side because of blatant clanger errors… they are the right errors. If you are going to lose the game, I would rather lose by skill error than by non-compliance to the gameplan or being unpredictable to teammates.”
Josh Ward’s turnover in the middle of the ground was the most obvious clanger, but it was Josh Weddle’s kick late in the match that allowed the Cats to scrounge a goal through the outstanding Shaun Mannagh, who snapped his third major for the game to give the Cats the seven-point lead that became the final margin.
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