Forget Insta followers and romantic intrigue: Bailey Smith is the real deal

Millennial pause... Is this thing on? How do I turn the font to neon?

That’s what is required to write about the most modern of modern footballers, Geelong’s Bailey Smith. These tired old letters in their antiquated colour and style just don’t chime with one of the biggest stories in the 2025 AFL season.

In one sense, Bailey and I have some shared history, in that we both, for a time, played for the same footy club. But in reality, we were ships in the night. Our time in the Footscray locker room didn’t overlap, although we did cross paths at the club once when Bailey was just a wee pup.

I remember leaving that brief encounter thinking how disarmingly polite he was. He was just Bailey at that time; brand “Bazlenka” was yet to launch. That seems like a long time ago now.

A memory that brought a smile to my face this week as I reflected on Bailey was from very early in his career at AFL level. It was under the roof at Docklands, and he was playing his first game against the Swans in 2019.

It just so happened that I was seated next to his parents.

I spent the game chatting with the Smiths and couldn’t help but focus more on watching the debutant with them. Footy is contagious like that.

Like many parents who are heavily invested in their children’s sporting careers at the top level, Bailey’s folks were clearly frustrated every time he made good position in space, arms outstretched, begging for the ball, only to be overlooked for a more familiar teammate within the chaos of the fast-moving play.

I did my best to reassure them that this in itself wasn’t unusual and that soon he would be receiving those handballs; the human chemistry of familiarity with teammates tends to have a bit of lag time in the early days.

He had four kicks and four handballs that day. If asked for a review of his debut game, you might’ve reached for a word such as “typical”. It would be your last chance to use a word like that to describe Bailey Smith.

Bailey ended his first season with 406 disposals and played all 23 games. That might be described as “exceptional”. It’s been a wild ride ever since.

If a player with Bailey’s dare, style and drive tends to draw the eye, his off field persona/s are designed to demand the eye. Forget the Instagram followers or romantic trysts, Bailey is so wholly modern because everything he does is turned up to 11.

Players have worn headbands before, but accompanied by a mane like that? Players have flipped the bird before, but the double bird? Players have changed clubs hundreds of times, but not many have had a dig at their old club’s turf as Bailey did this year.

There was a sense of outrage in some corners of the broader footy conversation this year when Bailey quipped to Cameron Mooney on Fox Footy that “he’d rather play here [at the MCG] than at Ballarat”.

Was it a cheeky soundbite to gain a little more light, a little more fanaticism – or was it a pointed jibe? As I understand it, the Bulldogs almost broke their backs in trying to accommodate all the complexities that exist within his prodigious talent, and he left anyway.

If it was a genuine dig, I can see why it ruffled feathers, but I can’t say for sure. The hair, the girls, the followers, the adverts and the money, it’s all going full steam and there’s a fine footy career to look after, too. But I wondered then, and wonder now, is there more to Bailey Smith or less?

Everything Bailey does is in neon. Blink, blink, blinkety-blink. The external life of Smith ducks, dips and weaves like his searing runs through the centre of the Cats midfield, but his internal life has followers of its own.

There’s concern, but I say that from afar. I watched Smith accept his All Australian blazer and let us inside at least some of the mental challenges he’s faced just within the past 12 months. Anyone who has struggled with mental health issues will tell you that it can be a long road and an unpredictable one. I can only wish the young man well.

In 2006, I remember beginning the first tentative steps of rehabilitation from a full knee reconstruction. I also remember receiving a message from club icon Chris Grant, and it read: “You might be ready to play after nine months, but you may not feel like your old self until 18 months”. In my own experience, he couldn’t have been more accurate.

I bring that up only to magnify what Bailey “Bazlenka” Smith has done on the field, purely as a footballer, this year for the Geelong footy club. In his return season from an ACL, at a new club, he has been out of this world good. Bailey the footballer is the real deal.

Someone from the Lions will have to curb his talents, or they, too, may feel the wrath of his rampaging and frenetic style. How they do it will go a long way to shaping the result of Friday night’s qualifying final.

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