Geelong coach Chris Scott says it's incumbent on him to "be the bigger man" and set a good example after copping his AFL suspended fine for a mid-match confrontation with Brisbane players on the chin.
Scott had exchanged words with Brisbane players at the first break of last Friday night's game, in the wake of Gary Rohan's strike on Lions star Lachie Neale, with Geelong players intervening to shepherd their coach away from the Lions huddle.
On Thursday, Scott received - and accepted - a suspended $10,000 fine from the AFL, and a day later, he emphasised the details of the incident were less important than his responsibility to set the example for football's lower levels.
"If you take a step back and you try to look at what we're trying to do (with) these kind of issues then it's incumbent on me to be the bigger man," Scott said on Friday.
"Now, I think the potential for it to flare up was zero, from my perspective - but again, that's not the issue, so I completely accept the role the AFL feel they need to play in it.
"If their position is 'we're not interested in the facts, we're not interested in why it happened - what we're interested in is the perception it might lead to at lower levels around what's acceptable' - then I'm more than prepared to play my role in that."
Scott emphasised the need to be wary of similar situations that could "escalate" into potential physical altercations at the lower levels.
"We play a highly-charged, emotional game and I think that's part of the theatre that people love," he said.
"But it can really quickly degenerate into ugly scenes at the lower levels - where you don't have the sort of controls that we have at the top level."
Scott said there was no need to enforce separation of different club staff in games.
"That's not clear at all. I don't think we've got to the stage where we're so immature and unprofessional that there can be no interaction," he said.
Scott said he was "100 per cent certain" he and Lions counterpart Chris Fagan were on good terms.
Meanwhile Scott expected Mitch Duncan to return against Hawthorn on Easter Monday after the winger's pre-season and opening two rounds were ruined by consecutive calf injuries.
