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In a candid press conference, North president Sonja Hood and footy boss Todd Viney cited feedback from players and staff that Clarkson \u201cno longer had the belief\u201d of enough people at Arden Street and suggested his inability to coach the modern game as reasons to cut tied. <\/p>\n
Speaking on Fox Footy\u2019s AFL 360 on Monday night, Scott thinks Clarkson was treated poorly on the way out as one of the game\u2019s most iconic figures.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was a (a rough week for the profession). I often heard it\u2019s a lonely existence and weeks like this remind me of that. Because it feels like you don\u2019t have many people advocating on our behalf,\u201d Scott said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really difficult for us as outsiders, even understanding the job better than most. It\u2019s impossible to look inside another football club and have an opinion on whether that club made the right decision or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think all coaches everywhere would say: \u2018If you treat Alastair Clarkson like that, what hope is there for the rest of us?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a good environment to operate in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Scott commented on Alastair Clarkson’s axing from North Melbourne.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
It took Scott back to his first pre-season at Geelong when he was 34 and \u201cunprepared for the job.\u201d<\/p>\n
A joke from long-time football administrator Neil Balme on how the Cats would take responsibility for performance made Scott feel like he had full support of the club.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeil Balme said to me: \u2018Don\u2019t worry, mate. If this doesn\u2019t work out, it\u2019s not your fault, it\u2019ll be our fault\u2019. It was a bit of a gag to make me feel a bit better about myself. But I actually took it as a message that: \u2018No, it is all of us. And if it doesn\u2019t work out, we will take responsibility as well\u2019,\u201d Scott said.<\/p>\n
But in other cases, Scott thinks \u201cit\u2019s too easy for others to put all the blame on coach\u201d and \u201cespecially with someone that\u2019s proven (himself) beyond a shadow of a doubt\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever you think of (Clarkson), I think he deserves the respect not to have all of the dirty laundry aired publicly. That\u2019s not to comment on the decision at all,\u201d the Cats coach added. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s possible that maybe them trying to explain the situation as well as they possibly could, they went a little bit further than they intended to. And perhaps there\u2019s an opportunity to say: \u2018Hang on, we didn\u2019t quite mean it that way\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut certainly, and I have a dog in the fight … all the coaches do. I think we sat there thinking: \u2018Really? Was it all him?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause there were a lot of things that have happened over the journey that I\u2019m sure weren\u2019t his decisions. We get it, we\u2019ll sort of have to take the bullet at the end of the day when things don\u2019t work out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nicks committed to Crows position | 01:14<\/p>\n
Clarkson\u2019s dismissal prompted conversations around old-school v new-school coaching and who\u2019s at the cutting edge. <\/p>\n
But Scott, the current longest-serving coach in the AFL after taking the reins at Geelong at the end of 2010, thinks old adages and new ideas are equally important. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are really lazy conclusions that can be made based on age or experience,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cCraig McRae is older than I am but he\u2019s coached fewer games than I have. How do you classify him?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very possible that you have young, Luddite coaches who are still thinking about olden days footy. But you can have old visionaries as well, I sort of put Chris Fagan in that category. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, I think the framing really should go to the individual situation. If you get swept up with the tide of popular opinion and go with the new, latest idea, I think you\u2019re likely to make an error.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Geelong coach says he was \u201cso fortunate\u201d that the club appointed him because they \u201chad a clear view of what they wanted\u201d and \u201cdidn\u2019t benchmark the rest of the competition\u201d to chase a trend.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey assessed their situation, made their decision based on that assessment and supported me as well as a young coach could possibly hope to be supported,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to think when my time is over, they\u2019ll keep the really savage criticism to a private conversation. And I\u2019d like to think, in reverse, I\u2019d thank them for the opportunity they gave me. Even though, I\u2019m sure, when I do get the bullet, I\u2019ll have a bit of the proverbial on my liver.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Scott has challenged the handling of Alastair Clarkson\u2019s sacking from North Melbourne that \u201caired all the dirty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":883151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-883150","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\/883150","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=883150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/883151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}