Jon Ralph: Examining Chris Scott’s messaging to AFL House, Geelong’s injury list

With weekly criticism and vague injury reports that were supposed be outlawed, Geelong and Chris Scott have shown they aren’t afraid to take on AFL House. Jon Ralph unpacks what the Cats coach is really saying.

Chris Scott is clever enough to avoid a fine but as the season unfolds it is obvious he is relishing his own form of a middle-fingered salute at AFL House.

Scott repeatedly torched the league in an 18-minute press conference last Saturday, labelling them as “prudish” over their decision to fine his new star Bailey Smith for his cheeky refrain to the Hawthorn crowd.

It was a prolonged and pointed attack as he questioned if the league actually handed all of its player fines to concussion funding and accused them of failing to apologise for their failings.

Only days later came the latest micro-aggression that sends the fans wild but clearly amuses the Geelong football department.

The league last year mandated that clubs be more specific in their injury reports to the media and fans, expressly banned the use of terms like short, medium and long-term to describe injuries.

And yet in Geelong’s injury lists of at least the past two weeks, the Cats football department has delighted in the most obscure descriptions possible.

Of the 11 players listed, seven of them have a TBC affixed (to be confirmed), two are “indefinite” and Jack Henry is listed as 1-3 weeks away with a hamstring.

Mitch Knevitt is listed as a test.

Tom Stewart, battling with a posterior cruciate strain, isn’t listed at all.

Geelong is aware under AFL rules it is allowed to make late changes up to an hour before games and has made use of that regulation five times so far this year.

The AFL is working with Geelong — to no avail — in a year where Scott has been particularly scorching in his criticism of the league.

In last week’s press conference Scott lashed the AFL for fining Smith yet taking little responsibility for the power outage on Anzac Day at the MCG.

“You just move on because you know that’s the way their world works. When they see something they don’t like, they punish people. When they muck up, maybe they’ll say sorry, but even that’s unlikely,” he said.

When the league clarified that Izak Rankine had been denied a potentially game-altering free kick against Gold Coast, he called it “laughable”.

Jon Ralph says Chris Scott has been giving a “middle finger” to the AFL.

He has said it was an “over-reaction” from the AFL to “cherry pick” examples late in games.

And only days after the league began an audit of Geelong’s third party payments he hit out at their own highly paid executive team, who were paid an average of $1.3 million in 2022.

“I think it’s reasonable to sort of work out, ‘How do you prioritise the people within the game?’ “Is it right that administrators get paid much, much, much, much more than the best player in the comp? Probably not.

If you watch a replay of the press conference from last Saturday as Scott lambasts the AFL, the Morris finance logo comes up at stages in the top left corner.

Scott has always been compelling listening in public and private – fiery, passionate, combative, fiercely intelligent.

You would be forgiven for following the trail and thinking the league’s ruling – forcing some of his Morris finance salary into the soft cap – might have particularly miffed Scott.

Particularly when clubs and the coaches association are lobbying for coaches to have unfettered access to that kind of arrangement to ease soft cap pressures.

Maybe we are naive – that Scott was just letting off steam.

But as far as AFL wars go Scott v the AFL is just as compelling as any current media feud or on-field skirmish.