After missing a scheduled media conference on Wednesday with more pressing issues to attend to, Brad Scott has spoken for the first time this week about his conversations with AFL operations manager Adrian Anderson and the umpiring department.
But before getting into any detail, Scott was quick to point out it wasn't North Melbourne that initiated contact despite being on the wrong end of a heavily slanted free-kick count.
"The high tackle issue has been blown right out of proportion and I want to make it clear, I didn't go and speak to the umpires. Adrian Anderson rang me," he told 1116 SEN's Morning Glory program with Tim Watson, Andy Maher and Dermott Brereton.
On one occasion, North captain Andrew Swallow appeared frustrated after catching Eagle Luke Shuey high in a tackling attempt.
"The thing with the frustration comes from the fact that we'd spoken about it at length, we'd trained it and we were aware of what they (West Coast) were doing, so with that awareness I think the fact that he (Swallow) still got Shuey high, I think he was incredibly frustrated, that he didn't get the technique right.
"When Adrian asked me about it I said, 'Mate look I don't really have a solution, I don't think there's anything we can put into the rules'. Because if you look at those tackles in real-time at real speed, they look high. So I think the umpires have got to pay what they see.
"The umpires now also have a really acute awareness of what's going on."
Scott said he was more concerned with his players' actions than those of the Eagles and in fact, he had no intention of calling umpires boss Jeff Gieschen and was surprised the AFL was first to call after wide-spread controversy over head-high tackles.
"I was prepared just to accept that our tackling technique wasn't good enough and get on with the job, but Adrian made a specific point of calling me and I raised with him that the high tackling issue wasn't the thing that frustrated me."
Scott said he was more concerned with the treatment of his ruckman Hamish McIntosh and he eventually had the opportunity to discuss those incidents with Gieschen.
"It was the five free kicks that went against Hamish McIntosh at boundary throw-ins. To which Jeff Gieschen said, 'They were all wrong and we make mistakes, Hamish is doing the right things at boundary throw-ins'. So from that we just got on with it, somehow this is a bigger story than it should have been," Scott explained.
Scott even received further explanations from umpires' mentor Rowan Sawers who also sent an official down to North training on Thursday.
"Unfortunately all of those (frees) went against Hamish and all of those went to Cox and basically Rohan Sawers said, 'Look we got those wrong, but we'll send down an umpire so Hamish goes into games knowing that his technique at boundary throw-ins is right.'
While McIntosh has been given the green light to continue playing his way, the same can't be said for Lindsay Thomas after the AFL amended the rule regarding sliding. Thomas' action which resulted in a broken leg for Swan Gary Rohan would now be deemed illegal.
"It's back to the drawing board because I'm not sure to be honest," Scott said in relation to the change of interpretation.
"We're going to have to go and study a whole lot of film and start to work out what we can and can't do. The number one instruction I give to my players is that we try and keep our feet at all costs so I suppose that's the number one thing that when you go in for the footy, you've got to keep your feet. If you lose your feet and you slide in and your feet happen to be up, then you risk giving away a free kick or getting reported.
"That's probably the starting point for us but in Lindsay's case, I thought that his sole focus was the ball and he didn't know what was around him so I suppose now we're getting to the situation where we've got to ask him to go into that contest, stay on his feet and you know, basically hope the opposition player does the same.
"It's a really difficult one for the players."
North Melbourne take on the Bulldogs on Sunday and Scott has recalled out of form ruckman Todd Goldstein for the match. Dropped to the VFL a fortnight ago, Scott hopes his big man returns to his 2011 form.
"Goldy just needs to revisit his work-rate. Whether it was just a subconscious thing that last year he was one-out and he had to do all the work himself...his work-rate was outstanding and he's a supreme athlete so he's capable of doing that. Subconsciously maybe he thought he had Hamish as back up and he wasn't working as hard as he did last year. We hope that he'll start to bring the work-rate to games that he brought last year."
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North Melbourne v Western Bulldogs
Sunday 13th May 2012, 1.10pm
Etihad Stadium
Gates open at 11.30am.
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