Scott also hit out at the “blatant intrusion” of media broadcasting audio of a conversation he had with Smith at training, and the “wrong” suggestion his star midfielder was battling a hamstring issue.<\/p>\n
The AFL’s official website this week broadcast footage of Smith running laps away from his teammates at Tuesday’s training, and also having a discussion with Scott.<\/p>\n
When asked if Smith would be fit to play at GMHBA Stadium on Sunday, Scott said: “Yeah, he is.<\/p>\n
“If they keep doing that stuff, we won’t let them in<\/p>\n
“Because it was so misleading, the way that was reported. It was just not true.”<\/p>\n
Scott insisted he “didn’t really care” but was frustrated by audio of the conversation being broadcast – and if it happened again, he wouldn’t head out onto the field for training until after the cameras were gone.<\/p>\n
“My understanding is when they’re here, they’re not recording audio of me speaking,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I consider that a blatant intrusion, to be honest.”<\/p>\n
Smith, who missed all of last year with an ACL tear, has had some hamstring tightness this season, but Scott emphasised that wasn’t the case this week.<\/p>\n
“Even for the supporters – to mislead them into thinking Bailey’s likely not playing or might be under some doubt because of a hamstring, it’s just not the right thing to do,” he said.<\/p>\n
“… The conversation was around exactly what he was going to do at training given he had a bit of a tight groin. So the extrapolation to a hamstring was wrong.”<\/p>\n
Scott was adamant he didn’t mind the additional focus on, or “obsession” with, Smith.<\/p>\n
“But I think it steps over the line when you imply that there’s an issue that doesn’t exist,” he said.<\/p>\n
The Cats are enjoying a healthy list heading into the pointy end of the season, with Cam Guthrie and Jake Kolodjashnij also set to get some VFL match minutes next week.<\/p>\n
“We are optimistic that we could have very close to full availability,” Scott said.<\/p>\n
With a tight turnaround between the Power clash and the following Friday’s game against Essendon, the Cats could look to manage players then.<\/p>\n
The Cats (fourth, 52 points) can stay firmly in the race for a top-two berth with victory over Port.<\/p>\n
“I think they have been quite open throughout the year that they have been looking to shift a few things,” Scott said.<\/p>\n
“It keeps you on your toes because going in expecting what you’ve always got is dangerous against an opponent like that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scott also hit out at the “blatant intrusion” of media broadcasting audio of a conversation he had with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-39483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39483","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=39483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}