Most post-match press conferences are a complete waste of time. The coach rocks up, the journalists lob a few half volleys, the sponsors get a bit of exposure, and very little is gleaned. In recent years, coaches like Chris Scott and John Worsfold have gone to great lengths to say as little as possible.
Luke Beveridge has always been different. He generally provides thoughtful answers. Like Ross Lyon, he treats idiotic questions with the contempt they deserve. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and he has certainly always been a little bit different to most AFL coaches. For the most part, it’s what’s made him one of the more interesting, likeable and successful coaches.
In recent weeks, he delivered a rambling, often incomprehensible season launch speech in which he channelled the spirit of Che Guevura, calling for a “revolution” to rebuild the club’s fortunes. That’s just Bevo, we thought – a bit bonkers, always looking for an angle. But as 100,000 Russian troops were massed on the Ukraine border, is was another example of footy taking itself a bit too seriously. Besides, the constant “siege mentality” was starting to wear thin. It’s all very well pushing the “us against the world” mentality when you’re coaching a bunch of scrubbers. Beveridge has some of the best footballers in Australia at his disposal. His club is going well on and off the field. It all seemed a little hackneyed.
On Wednesday night, he came spoiling for a fight. His team had been rolled. His sergeant-in-arms moustache was bristling. He had an axe to grind with Tom Morris after the journalist published a story on Monday saying that Lachie Hunter wouldn’t be selected for the match. Beveridge unleashed a rather extraordinary tirade, accusing him of “gutter journalism”. “You’ve been preying on us. You’ve been opening us up, causing turmoil within our football club.” He stormed out. It certainly made for good content. But it was pretty churlish, excruciating stuff.
Morris, to his credit, stood his ground. His story held up – Hunter was initially named to start, then moved to the medical substitute list but ended up playing after an injury in the warm-up. Over the years, some in the AFL have bullied and berated journalists. They’re often young, often fighting out of their weight division and often caught like a deer in the headlights. Coaches would do it to deflect attention away from their own shortcomings. Some would often do it to protect their own players. Over the years, the questions got softer and softer. In the end, you had some journalists lobbing free hits at experienced and wily couches, who’d gently pat them away. It was hardly Frost-Nixon.
Wednesday night felt different. Wednesday night Beveridge crossed a line and it’s worth asking why. Coaching departments are certainly under a lot of strain at the moment. They’re under-resourced and overworked. Chris Scott has spoken at length about how it really isn’t an enjoyable or healthy way to make a living. In his exit from the Adelaide Crows, Don Pyke expressed concerns around “contentment” and how the pitiless scrutiny is breaking a lot of coaches down. In this context, concerns about gutter journalism have weight, just not in relation to Morris’s story.
Look at some of the reporting around the break-ups of the marriages of Damian Hardwick and Nathan Buckley, and tell me that isn’t gutter journalism. Look at the markets that are framed around the first coach to be sacked. Look at a lot of language we use to describe losses. In the Herald Sun recently, Mark Robinson described North Melbourne losing a scratch match as “revolting, physically weak, mentally soft, humbled, shamed, bashed, and bruised”. If I were a footy coach, and I read that, I’d have a sizeable chip on my shoulder too.
Beveridge has always been a man you cross at your peril. He has longstanding feuds with several prominent footy figures, including Kane Cornes and Damian Barrett. When one of his players was said to have passed on sensitive information about team selection to his brother, Beveridge was apoplectic. He called it an act of “high treason”. In Martin Flanagan’s book about the 2016 premiership, the Bulldogs head trainer told him Beveridge is “the nicest person at the club”. “But you wouldn’t want to cross him on an issue where he felt the integrity of the club or the team were concerned.”
That’s all well and good. He’s a players’ man. He’s an emotional man. And he’s a street fighter. His eventual apology on Thursday was a decent one, but he was dying on the wrong hill on Wednesday night. He’s made an incredibly poor start to season 2022. Let’s hope, as Jack Dyer would say, he makes a better one next week.
