Footy firebrand Kane Cornes defends himself over 'ridiculous' report on fiery Luke Beveridge exchange

Daily Mail​

6 days ago

Polarising Channel Seven footy commentator Kane Cornes has called out Fox Footy for a report it did on his fiery exchange with Luke Beveridge last Thursday night in Geelong.
Cornes already had a frosty relationship with the Western Bulldogs coach - and the relationship didn't get any better after the pair exchanged words at the GMHBA Stadium.
The former Port Adelaide star revealed at the beginning of the month that he has been banned from entering the Bulldogs' changing room while conducting his broadcasting duties for Channel 7.
The reason for the ban is still unclear but Cornes has in the past questioned whether Beveridge, who won a premiership in his second season with the Doggies, is the right man for the job.
Cornes later said he didn't have an issue with the coach's reaction after the pair clashed, but he wasn't happy with how Fox Footy reporter Jon Ralph covered the incident.
'Cornes was already banned from the Dogs' rooms after a series of negative articles and comments in regards to Beveridge,' Ralph said in his report.
'The club believes it's personal – called him a 'poor ambassador for his football club', called for his sacking repeatedly.
'People around the situation felt like Cornes stepped into his space and they're thankful that Beveridge did walk on. Cornes said Beveridge was 'starting quite strongly at him', so he said 'G'day Bevo' – and it wasn't received well.'
'The question here is whether this is deliberately disrespectful and antagonistic, whether it was the time and the space for Cornes to talk to Beveridge.
'It'll be great for the Cornes publicity machine, but I think Beveridge in a really highly emotional state in what he would believe to be a safe space pre-match dealing with all the issues he faced with the Bailey Smith saga, this was not the time and the place and felt like he was specifically baited from someone who the club had already banned.
'Certainly an unnecessary and sorry saga that continues between Cornes and Beveridge.'
Speaking about the issue on The Agenda Setters, Cornes called for Ralph to apologise for saying he encroached into Beveridge's space.
'I read that too and it was ridiculous,' Cornes said.
'I think it's important as your journalist to have your integrity intact and the last thing you want to do is mislead and misrepresent an incident that went down and you want to get both sides of what happened.
'What Jon Ralph said there is embarrassing, he misled and misrepresented what happened, and all he had to do was check the vision before he wanted to run a narrative that suited him for the benefit of his channel and himself.
'I thought those comments were really ordinary. I have not heard from Jon, I would have expected an apology off the back of that, but all he had to do was ring me and asked me what happened or look at the vision and not take the word of the Western Bulldogs word for word before he went with that.'
Another angle of the controversial incident was shown on the program, which clearly showed Cornes only moving towards Beveridge after the coach had walked past.
'Where have I encroached on the space?' Cornes asked.