Geelong are “really confident” in their management of star midfielder Bailey Smith while conceding they aren’t perfect.
Football boss Andrew Mackie was asked about boom recruit Smith, who had a terrific season on the field but courted controversy off it, at Monday’s AFL trade period launch.
The Cats are set to ditch their traditional Mad Monday celebrations after widespread criticism of some controversial costumes and questionable social media antics, including from Smith, last week.
When asked how the dust had settled from that event, Mackie pointed to the AFL grand finalist’s statement at the time and said: “Obviously, we’re not perfect. We don’t stand here and pretend to be.
“When you’ve got a playing list and staff like us, there’s no finished product.
“We’re a work in progress all across the board as a club, like everyone probably should be. We’re no different.
“Every now and then,there’s things that pop up that ideally don’t, but we can only learn and educate from here our players and our people.”
Mackie rubbished a report that the club hadn’t known Smith’s whereabouts in recent days and was confident in how they were handling the 24-year-old, who starred off a knee reconstruction in his first season at Geelong.
“Really confident,” he said.
“No, that wasn’t all factual – I was aware what he was up to.
“But, like I said, I get the interest in Bailey. But him playing footy this year is a real success story for the game.
“As I said, we’re all not perfect. We’ve just got to continue to keep working together and those little moments that might bubble away, we’ve just got to keep on educating.”
Mackie wouldn’t divulge how he or the club had spoken to Smith about his recent indiscretions, which also included verbally abusing a female photographer.
“It’s not our style to communicate to media about how we talk to our players and work through that stuff,” he said.
“So once again, I get the interest, but that’s not something that we’re willing to talk about publicly, about how we go about that.”
