Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has unleashed one of the fiercest ever sprays at an AFL press conference, berating a reporter for causing “turmoil” at the club.
In an extraordinary three-minute tirade, Beveridge blasted Fox Sports’ Tom Morris for a report about Bulldogs premiership midfielder Lachie Hunter being dropped for their AFL grand final rematch against Melbourne.
After insulting Morris, Beveridge stormed out of his media conference early after the Bulldogs’ 26-point defeat to the Demons on Wednesday night.
“You’ve got the nerve to ask me a question and even be here,” Beveridge responded to Morris’ question about the pre-game saga around Hunter.
“You’ve been preying on us and causing turmoil within our football club by declaring our team well before it needs to be declared.
“Is that the gutter journalist you want to be?
“We went in with a plan, we had some late stuff go on out in the warm-up.
“All the other stuff was according to plan right from the Sunday and somehow you’ve found out about that again.
“We’ve got to get to the bottom of this, obviously we need to put our hand up to say there’s some leakage going on.”
The Bulldogs’ 2016 premiership coach said Morris was “not welcome” at the press conference and Beveridge attempted to have him removed.
Beveridge went onto claim the report was “muck-raking trash”, Morris was an “absolute embarrassment” and he was giving “everyone else a bad name”.
The press conference came to an end so abruptly, Beveridge did not even address the fitness of superstar captain Marcus Bontempelli, who was clearly troubled by an ankle injury for most of the second-half.
It was a truly bizarre end to a night where Melbourne unfurled their first premiership flag in 57 years in front of 58,002 fans at the MCG.
Hunter was named in the Bulldogs’ team on Tuesday night, but was demoted to medical sub an hour before Wednesday night’s contest at the MCG.
But Hunter earned a reprieve into the starting-22 when Norm Smith medallist Jason Johannisen suffered an injury during the warm-up.
The report about Hunter ran on Fox Footy on Monday night, with Beveridge bristling at any questions about his midfielder at his pre-game press conference on Tuesday.
Get all the latest Canberra news, sport, entertainment, lifestyle, competitions and more delivered straight to your inbox with the Canberra Daily Daily Newsletter. Sign up here.
