Luke Beveridge BLASTS Fox reporter for ‘leaking’ Lachie Hunter team news after Bulldogs defeat

Luke Beveridge launched a bizarre tirade at a Fox Sports reporter after the furious Western Bulldogs coach took issue with ‘leaks’ prior to his side’s round one defeat by Melbourne on Wednesday. 

In a back-and-forth contest with plenty of momentum swings, the Dees saw out a 26-point victory over last year’s grand finalists, with captain Max Gawn helping his side get over the line with a mammoth kick from downtown.

Ahead of the game, it emerged that Beveridge had chosen not to select Premiership-winning midfielder Lachie Hunter for the clash – with Fox’s Tom Morris initially reporting the team news.

Luke Beveridge launched a furious rant at a Fox Sports reporter after his side’s defeat to Dees

The Western Bulldogs coach saw red as he spoke to the press following the round one opener

Beveridge stormed out of his press conference after a tense exchange with Fox’s Tom Morris

In a whirlwind series of events, Hunter was named in the side on Tuesday night, before being left out Hayden Crozier, before again being a very late inclusion and replacing the injured Jason Johannisen prior to the bounce.

And Beveridge saw red and erupted at the Fox journalist, labelling him an ’embarrassment’ during an icy exchange at the MCG.  

‘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.

The Doggies were unable to exact revenge on the Demons in their grand final rematch at the G

Beveridge was enraged by the ‘leaking’ of team news ahead of his side’s round one opener

‘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.’

‘This is why the health and wellbeing in the game is caught up in all this stuff because we’ve got things to concentrate on performance-wise, we’ve got to look after our own and then you cause all this … that happens behind the scenes and names get brought up into it,’ he said.

Morris stood his ground, and an unimpressed Beveridge stormed out of the press conference. 

Fox Sports reported that Lachie Hunter (R) was set to be omitted from Beveridge’s line-up

Beveridge’s rant did not win any sympathy, though, with former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley expressing shock at the unexpected outburst.

‘That surprised and amazed me. I was sitting back here … I just could not believe what I was seeing,’ he said on Fox Footy.

‘That is not what we have come to know, it’s not what we have come to expect. There’s got to be respect both ways, got to understand there’s jobs to do, it’s a big industry.

‘The background to this is Tom knew Ryan Gardner wasn’t playing in the grand final and he’s run with that.’