A FURIOUS Luke Beveridge has sensationally stormed out of his press conference following Wednesday night's defeat to Melbourne, after being questioned about Lachie Hunter's place in the Western Bulldogs side.
Fox Footy reporter Tom Morris revealed on Monday that Hunter would be dropped due to poor performance for the season-opener. The midfielder was then selected in the Dogs' side, was a late omission 60 minutes before the bounce, then returned to the team when Jason Johannisen was injured in the warm-up.
Speaking in his scheduled press conference afterwards, Beveridge was asked by Morris about the circumstances leading to Hunter's place in the side. He replied with the following comments:
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"You've got the nerve to ask me a question and even be here. You've been preying on us the last two times. You barrack for Melbourne, Tom Morris. You've been preying on us. You've been opening us up, causing turmoil within our football club by declaring our team well before it needs to be declared. Is that the way Fox want you to operate? Is that what you're doing? Is that the gutter journalist you want to be? Is that who you want to be?
"We went in with a plan. We had some late stuff go on, with JJ unfortunately coming out in the warm-up. Everything other than that was according to plan from the Sunday, which somehow you found out about again. We need to get to the bottom of this. Obviously, we need to put our hand up and say that there's some leakage going on. But you're preying on it and it's a team you barrack for. Your conflict of interest here is considerable. And yet, your gutter journalism at the moment is killing us behind the scenes.
"The health and wellbeing of people in the game is caught up in all of this stuff. We've got things to concentrate on performance-wise, we've got to look after our own, and then you cause all of this muck-raking trash that happens behind the scenes. Names get brought up into it. All we're doing it planning for a football game. Are you proud of yourself? You're proud of yourself? Wow. That's enough, that's enough. Next question please. You're not welcome. Well, have you got enough boys and girls? I think we're probably done, aren't we?
"This is what happens, because I know … if you found something out, you'd ring (head of communications) Adrian Ceddia and say, 'look I know this … just so you know that I know … something has happened and it's got out'. The courtesy and the integrity and the ethical way to go about it has happened in the past. Now this bloke here and what he's doing, it's giving everyone else a bad name. Right when we're trying to stabilise our competition and what we do, with everything that's gone on behind the scenes and us as coaches and a football program with the soft cap situation as it is, and this sort of stuff happens. You're an embarrassment to what you do, mate. You're an embarrassment. An absolute embarrassment."
Beveridge then left his press conference without any further questions.
