Nash’s coach Sam Mitchell said, given that Miers was concussed, he expected the midfielder to face scrutiny. He also said the incident probably impacted on Nash, who is not known for that sort of action.

“His numbers certainly dwindled after that,” Mitchell said.

Scott asked reporters for their assessment of the Nash-Miers incident, rather than offer his own interpretation, but agreed with a comparison to a recent incident involving Fremantle’s Patrick Voss, which saw the Docker suspended for three matches.

“I wouldn’t argue against [that],” he said. “I don’t think it helps me elaborate too much.”

Scott said Miers would miss next week against Carlton due to the concussion, but he was in good spirits.

The two incidents left spectators with plenty to discuss, but Mitchell was more focused on the uncharacteristic skill errors that cost his team the chance to beat the Cats. James Sicily’s kicking was off all day, including kicking the ball out of bounds on the full when having a set shot in the last quarter, while Jack Gunston was also inaccurate.

Nick Watson missed a set shot from straight in front, which would have given the Hawks the lead late in the game, while constant turnovers kept Geelong ahead as the Hawks pressed.

“Hopefully it’s an outlier,” Mitchell said. “Your game style relies on hitting the kicks that you should. The amount of time we were caught off-side because of blatant clanger errors… they are the right errors. If you are going to lose the game, I would rather lose by skill error than by non-compliance to the gameplan or being unpredictable to teammates.”

Josh Ward’s turnover in the middle of the ground was the most obvious clanger, but it was Josh Weddle’s kick late in the match that allowed the Cats to scrounge a goal through the outstanding Shaun Mannagh, who snapped his third major for the game to give the Cats the seven-point lead that became the final margin.

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