Geelong have limits to the empathy they can show Tyson Stengle in the curious case of the absent premiership forward, coach Chris Scott says.
Scott says he can't shed any light on the status of Stengle, who has played only one VFL game this season amid off-field issues.
The flag-winning goalsneak's situation remains clouded with Scott and Cats intimating it's an AFL issue, while the league says it's largely a matter for Geelong.
Scott says Stengle, who last played in the AFL in Geelong's 2025 grand final loss, remains "miles off" being available.
"So it sort of hasn't crossed my desk and I suspect it really won't until that becomes a bit more of a viable situation," Scott told reporters on Monday.
"We're not there yet."
Stengle reportedly missed a June 24 flight for a Geelong VFL game after being spotted partying nights before at a Melbourne nightclub.
"I've got so much admiration for the players that can just persevere through the ups and downs as well as they do," Scott said.
"It's a bit of a surprise to me you don't have more players just saying: 'Look, I'm finding this too tough at the moment'.
"We like to make things as easy as we possibly can because, let's be honest, most of the time it's going to be bloody hard work.
"And my take on where Tyson is at, is that's how he's feeling about his sort of football life at the moment: it's just all a little bit hard for him."
Scott said there were limits to the support the Cats could offer.
"We're like: 'Hey man, we empathise with you, this is a tough game'," he said.
"But there are limits to where our empathy takes us because we're not a charity, as much as we'd like to be."
Asked if Stengle's scenario was an AFL or club matter, Scott replied: "It's not me ... there's probably other people that you should put that question to.
"Our role in these situations, we talk a lot about really supporting players.
"You shouldn't mistake the real priority that we place on player welfare for forgetting that we're also in a high-performance industry where we have high expectations of our players and our people so that we can perform as well as possible."