{"id":187712,"date":"2025-10-03T15:09:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T15:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/187712\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T15:09:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T15:09:22","slug":"adam-cooneys-advice-for-bailey-smith-after-turbulent-few-weeks-mad-monday-cancelled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/187712\/","title":{"rendered":"Adam Cooney’s advice for Bailey Smith after turbulent few weeks; Mad Monday cancelled"},"content":{"rendered":"

2008 Brownlow Medal winner Adam Cooney has had some pointed words of advice for Bailey Smith<\/a> after a turbulent few weeks.<\/p>\n

The midfielder’s behaviour during Geelong’s<\/a> Mad Monday celebrations, particularly his social media posting, has led to the AFL expressing their disappointment and the club confirming they will no longer hold the event in the same capacity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Cats have been celebrating elaborate Mad Monday events for 20 years, but have called them off after Smith’s first. <\/p>\n

READ MORE: Saints skipper steps down as potential trade lingers<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Saints’ $2.5m splash as free agency floodgates open<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Petracca elects rival club as Demons exit looms<\/a><\/p>\n

He rocked up to the Brownlow in shades, swearing at media crews<\/a> and got into a shoving match in the dying moments of the grand final with Brisbane captain Harris Andrews<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bailey Smith speaks to reporters.\u00a0Nine<\/p>\n

Smith undoubtedly had a breakout season in his first year at the Cats, making the All-Australian team and finishing third in the Brownlow Medal.<\/p>\n

He has an enormous future ahead of him and Cooney, who starred for both the Bulldogs and Bombers across his career, believes Smith’s current behaviour is unsustainable professionally.<\/p>\n

“I think Geelong did the right thing. I think Bailey Smith overstepped the mark with the comments that were deemed to be homophobic<\/a>,” Cooney told SEN on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“I think that was a tipping point again for Geelong. Bailey Smith has got to be careful. If he doesn’t pull his head in, in 12 months’ time he’s not going to be at Geelong.<\/p>\n

“We’ll be talking about Bailey Smith in the trade period in 2026 because he is so high profile, so even the smallest thing (becomes news).<\/p>\n

\"Bailey<\/p>\n

Bailey Smith of the Cats and Andrew Dillon, Chief Executive Officer of the AFL are seen during the 2025 Brownlow Medal \u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

“Tyson Stengle has had a couple of faux pas out the front of Geelong nightclubs. He’s of lower profile so that gets swept under the rug a bit. It’s in the news for a day.<\/p>\n

“Everything Bailey does is magnified by a hundred. He’s getting just a little bit too big for his boots at the moment.<\/p>\n

“Some of the comments that he’s been making, even walking into Mad Monday saying ‘I haven’t sunk piss for a couple of days, I’m ready to go get in to it’. Like, he wouldn’t have said that four years ago.<\/p>\n

“He just needs to temper it a little bit because Chris Scott gives his players an amazing amount of freedom, independence and responsibility. But if you don’t do the right thing by him, you’re gone.<\/p>\n

“I just don’t want to see it go pear-shaped.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bailey Smith and Max Holmes\u00a0Instagram<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the Mad Monday hysteria, Geelong released the following statement.<\/p>\n

“Certain costumes and associated social media posts were inappropriate and a significant error of judgment, and do not reflect our team-of-all commitment,” a statement read.<\/p>\n

“The club has decided future post-season events will not continue in this current form, and we will take this moment to further educate our people on expectations and club and community standards.”<\/p>\n

Geelong star Max Holmes defended his decision to dress as journalist Caroline Wilson to the event, revealing he asked her for permission before doing so.<\/p>\n

Holmes has previously attended Mad Monday events dressed as journalists, including Mitch Cleary and Gerard Whateley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2008 Brownlow Medal winner Adam Cooney has had some pointed words of advice for Bailey Smith after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-187712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}