In a column for this masthead,<\/a> Wilson condemned Smith\u2019s behaviour and described the Cats\u2019 response as \u201cpathetic\u201d. She also reported that key Geelong officials did not know of Smith\u2019s whereabouts between Mad Monday and Thursday\u2019s best and fairest count.<\/p>\nLoading<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a case of professional outrage. How dare Smith get away with sending such an insulting and sexist message to aspiring females with strong opinions working in the media or elsewhere in the AFL,\u201d Wilson wrote.<\/p>\n
Smith also posted a photo of himself with Patrick Dangerfield, both dressed as cowboys, with a caption that was condemned by members of the LBGTQ community.<\/p>\n
Mackie conceded on Monday the club was not perfect, saying the players would be further educated on what was acceptable.<\/p>\n
Asked whether the club was confident in its management of Smith and about the report that the club wasn\u2019t aware of his whereabouts after Mad Monday, he said:<\/p>\n
\u201cReally confident. Yeah, really confident. No, that wasn\u2019t 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\u2019re all not perfect. We\u2019ve just got to continue to keep working together and those little moments that might bubble away, we\u2019ve just got to keep educating.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked again about how the Cats were managing Smith, Mackie said, \u201cit\u2019s not our style to communicate to media about how we talk to our players and work through that stuff\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/00638cf866002ecfe80dd788f2a164fe4e80105f.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The disappointed Cats watch on at the medal presentation after losing the grand final to Brisbane.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Smith finished runner-up in the club best and fairest, third in the Brownlow Medal and earned All-Australian selection in a brilliant comeback from a knee reconstruction. He also retrospectively revealed that mental health battles last year led to him voluntarily admitting himself to Epworth\u2019s mental health facility for a month.<\/p>\n
However, a series of incidents involving Smith has led to questions about how the Cats have handled him off the field.<\/p>\n
The AFL\u2019s executive general manager of football performance Greg Swann told ABC radio on Sunday he didn\u2019t think the matter had been completely resolved.<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it has finished yet either. I think there are still some discussions and conversations happening, so hopefully it will all be dealt with and we can move on hopefully,\u201d Swann said.<\/p>\n
Dangerfield, Geelong\u2019s captain, also apologised at the club\u2019s best and fairest count on Thursday night, admitting the players got it wrong at the normally lighthearted end-of-season celebration.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not perfect,\u201d Mackie said. \u201cWe don\u2019t stand here and pretend to be. When you\u2019ve got a playing list and staff like us, there\u2019s no finished product. We\u2019re a work in progress all across the board, as a club, like everyone probably should be. We\u2019re no different. Every now and then, there are things that pop up that ideally [wouldn\u2019t]. But we can only learn [and] educate from here our players and our people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cats released a statement last Wednesday after receiving backlash for the social media posts Smith made two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-193149","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\/193149","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=193149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Cats](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1fe1fcbb302699788f0cdf1724ae0986b3892e03.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n