Geelong coach Chris Scott says Tyson Stengle remains a ‘monumental success story’

Stengle had been the talk of the town following an incident in a Geelong nightclub, just hours after kicking three crucial majors against North Melbourne in Hobart on Saturday.

However, Scott said the 25-year-old was “super” against the Crows, showing plenty of mental resilience to bounce back and have a big influence on the result.

In further good news for Cats fans, Sam De Koning was cleared of any major issues with a knee, after being subbed out with two minutes to play in the third term.

Stengle would kick the Cats’ first major and finish with 20 possessions with 14 contested and nine score involvements.

“I don’t want to talk at great length about Tyson because some of the stuff I’m edging towards is private information,” Scott said.

“What I will say he is a monumental success story that kid, if you know what he’s had to overcome.

“We’ll all be critical of people making errors here and there, but with Tyson you’ll come away and go: ‘We should be proud of him’.”

“I just thought he was super (against the Crows).”

Scott said it would have been “forgivable” for Stengle to not play following a mentally taxing lead-in.

“It’s just great news that physically he’s in good shape and his health and well being is solid,” he said.

“Our medical staff were very confident of that very early in the piece, and that makes you breathe a bit of a sigh of relief.

“There’s some mental pressure that comes with it as well, people talk about building resilience, sometimes in those moments it would be forgivable to crumble a little bit.

“And he did the opposite, and he looked like the one on our team looking to take the moment as much as anything, I thought he was super in the game.

“And the way he handled the week was credit to him as well.”

When asked if Scott had a one-on-one conversation with Stengle to see where he was at mentally, the two-time premiership coach said he backed in his welfare staff to lead those discussions.

“The last thing they need is me sticking my nose in,” he said.

“Sometimes the more the coach wants to get involved, the more difficult it can be for the player.

“My go-to tends to be to really trust the people empowered, especially in our welfare space.

“But that’s easy with our guys because they give really good feedback and explain it really well.”

He said every situation was different when handling players dealing with off-field issues.

“I’m a little cautious to talk of it in general terms, the way we talk about these things is that every situation’s different,” he said.

“We treat our players as individuals, we don’t have blanket rules.

“Once we bring them in, we’ve got their back, that’s our responsibility.

“Doesn’t mean we’ll give you a pass.

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“But what would you do with your 21-year-old son? Not that I have one but, I just think of it in a similar way.

“The easiest thing to do in the world is take the moral high ground, turf him out.

“I shouldn’t talk about him in detail, it’s more the way I think about (things), it’s not necessarily a club position.”

Originally published as Geelong coach Chris Scott says Tyson Stengle remains a ‘monumental success story’