Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley has apologised to North Melbourne’s Lindsay Thomas for accusing him of an “average” act and faking injury.
Buckley expressed surprise on Monday that Thomas escaped penalty for the bump that injured Magpie defender Ben Reid at Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
But Kangaroos coach Brad Scott, infuriated by Buckley’s post-match comments suggesting Thomas was in trouble, was placated when both he and his player subsequently received unexpected calls from the Collingwood coach.
“He apologised to me and to our football club but more importantly he rang Lindsay Thomas and apologised to him, so I think that speaks volumes for the type of person he is,” Scott told reporters on Thursday.
Scott unsurprisingly backed the match review panel’s decision to clear Thomas, but said he was sick of having to defend the forward’s reputation against other unjustified perceptions.
He said Buckley’s suggestion Thomas took a dive – later retracted – and the regular queries Scott fields about the forward’s goal-shooting accuracy both harked back to past faults which Thomas had eradicated.
“Lindsay in the past has played for free kicks and we’ve instructed him not to do that,” Scott said.
“He got heavily criticised for his goal kicking and his conversion.
“Last year he was one of the most accurate small forwards in the competition but that doesn’t get reported.
“All people want to talk about is Lindsay Thomas’ yips in front of goal.
“Lindsay’s a great story for us … he’s got great strength of character and I won’t let anyone denigrate that unfairly.”
Thomas had 57 scoring shots in each of the past two seasons, but while just 21 of those were goals in 2011, that number jumped to 38 last year.
The Kangaroos face Geelong at Etihad Stadium on Sunday and Scott said the Cats would punish them just as severely as the Magpies did, if they repeated their skill and decision-making errors of the opening round.
He said it was nice to be playing Geelong at Etihad, where North beat them last year, rather than Simonds Stadium, where the Cats won the clubs’ preceding four clashes.
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