GEELONG coach Chris Scott won't coach the theatre out of Bailey Smith after the box office recruit reacted to the crowd booing him and was involved in an incident with Jarman Impey during the Cats' seven-point win over Hawthorn on Easter Monday.
The 24-year-old conceded a free kick to the Hawks defender when he slammed the ball into Impey's head in front of the Shane Warne Stand in retaliation to an earlier incident that resulted in a down field free kick after Smith was collected late.
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Match review officer Michael Christian will assess the incident on Tuesday, 10 days after Smith was fined for an offensive gesture at Adelaide Oval, following the Cats' win over Adelaide in Gather Round.
Despite missing all of 2024 while recovering from a knee reconstruction, Smith has been one of the recruits of the year, collecting 32 disposals in round one, 25 in round three, 28 in round four and then 35 against the Crows, before finishing with 28 on Monday to be one of the best players on the MCG.
Scott said Geelong knew what it was getting when it recruited Smith last October and won't try and alter the former Western Bulldogs midfielder's behaviour unless it becomes a problem.
"It was that minor it's not even funny. Often it's the retaliator that cops the free kick against. Touching the footy on someone's face, I hope he [Impey] is OK. I think it's so minor that I wouldn’t worry about it; we don't condone it, but we're much more interested in a pattern," Scott said on Monday night.
"Even the fact I've spoken about it too much probably gives it too much airtime.
"We get that he's high profile, and I wouldn't necessarily coach anyone to behave exactly the way Bailey does, but he is what he is, and our job is to shape him. We knew he was going to come in and be a bit different to players that we've had in our system before, but we made a commitment to embrace it and help.
"He is 23, by the way, he is going to evolve. It's not just Bailey, we've got other guys that need to pick and choose their moments. He came off the ground and the crowd is into him – I don't buy into that much but my suggestion is the crowd loved it, the AFL loved it and I reckon Bailey loves it as well.
"If the suggestion is we should try and make him boring and vanilla then we will rail against it."
Star small forward Gryan Miers will miss next Sunday's game against Carlton at the MCG but should be available against Collingwood in round eight if he passes through the concussion protocols in time.
"Sometimes you come in and see a guy who is clearly still affected, which doesn't tell you everything, and other times you come in like today and they are fine," Scott said.
"He said he is fine. He was obviously a bit out of it for a while but now he feels great. He might not be telling me the whole truth but at least the signs are good."
Miers was concussed in a brutal incident after Hawthorn midfielder Conor Nash collected the 26-year-old with a swinging arm, which was similar to the incident that cost Fremantle forward Patrick Voss a three-game suspension last week after he broke the nose of Richmond defender Nick Vlaustin at Barossa Park.
Scott wouldn't be drawn to comment on the incident but agreed with the similarities between the two incidents.
"You know that I can't talk about it," he said.
"It would be in your interests if I did, but it's not in my interests to talk about it and I would get in trouble with my 40-year-old boss [GM Andrew Mackie]."
After starting the season 4-0 Hawthorn has now dropped two games in eight days, following the Gather Round loss to Port Adelaide.
Hawks coach Sam Mitchell lamented the costly defensive half turnovers, including the two in the game defining play that resulted in Shaun Mannagh's winning goal with less than three minutes to play.
"We are disappointed. We got a lot of things right; they are a good side. But we got enough wrong that they deserve the win. You can't do some of the stuff that we did today and expect to beat good sides," Mitchell said.
"We've known where we are at; we need to improve; we need to keep getting better and we feel like we are continually doing that, but the best sides put you away when you make mistakes. We turned the ball over 10 times in our defensive 50.
"You are going to have to take more chances against quality and we couldn't do it. You're not going to win a lot of games kicking the ball the way we did tonight."
The Hawks made two unforced changes ahead of the Easter Monday blockbuster, dropping Jack Ginnivan, who responded with four goals and 22 touches in the VFL on Sunday, and Finn Maginness, who was a carryover emergency with Sam Frost.
Henry Hustwaite will come under consideration to replace Nash in the side if he cops a suspension as expected after another brilliant performance for Box Hill at GMHBA Stadium.
