Inside the frosty exchange between Kane Cornes and Luke Beveridge at GMHBA Stadium

7NEWS

23-05-2025

Expert AFL commentator Kane Cornes has detailed what was said during his explosive pre-game confrontation with Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge on Thursday night.
The pair faced off at GMHBA Stadium ahead of the epic encounter between the Dogs and Geelong, with vision of the frosty exchange caught on Seven's coverage.
Cornes has been strong critic of Beveridge over the years, believing the team has underperformed since winning the 2016 premiership.
The Port Adelaide great was commentating for Channel 7 on Thursday when Beveridge walked past him on the ground.
'I was standing close to the boundary line just in front of where we had our LED pod getting ready to go on TV,' Cornes said on his Friday radio show SEN's Fireball.
'I was staring out blankly into space to the players warming up and just out of the corner of my eye Luke Beveridge and the crew started walking towards me. I thought, 'Oh, OK, this is going to be interesting. How do I play this?'
'So I just stood there and looked out and as he came closer to me, he was staring at me strongly, with a strong look on his face. That was from 10 or so metres away and as he got a little bit closer, I looked back and I just said, 'Bevo,' and nodded my head.
'The reaction (from Beveridge) was the reaction that you saw.
'I don't know if it's for me to share what he said. I'm happy to tell you exactly my part in this — other than to say 'Bevo', and nodded my head ... it wasn't received well.
'It was something along the lines of, 'You've got the nerve to say that,' and I just said, 'What, I can't say hello?'.
'Then he turned around again and started to go again and that's when he was dragged away.
'But it's OK, it's fine. He's combative, he protects his club. I've got no issue with it. We can have a bit of a laugh about it, I think.'
Cornes also explained why he took some steps towards Beveridge during the exchange.
'It was never going to become physical. He had his own security guards, he had a couple of club officials pulling him way,' he said
'It was more just a flinch reaction or a shock reaction when you're not expecting something. Your initial instinct is to walk over and say, 'Did I hear that correctly?', type of thing.
'It was over pretty quickly.'
After the game, Beveridge shut down any talk about the clash.
'What incident?' he said.
'Ultimately we come in here, we talk about the game, that's probably all we're after isn't it?
'If you're trying to drum up any controversy, I don't think there was any. I've really got nothing to say. You're not going to get me to bite.'
Cornes is not the only person in the media that Beveridge has had an issue with over the years.
AFL Media's Damian Barrett has regularly spoken about an encounter with Beveridge and the coach had a famous blow-up at journalist Tom Morris (who would lose his job not after that for another issue that surfaced) about a team selection story.
'I'm not the first person he's had a run-in with, there's been many,' Cornes said.
'Caro (veteran AFL journalist Caroline Wilson from Channel 7's The Agenda Setters and The Age), Damo (Damian Barrett), Mark Robinson (former Herald Sun chief football writer), Tom Morris, and myself.
'He's a combative character. I'm sure I won't be the last and we move on.'
Cornes shared a strong opinion on Beveridge's public persona three weeks ago when The Agenda Setters co-host Craig Hutchison described the coach as being on a 'charm offensive' with the media.
Beveridge is in the final year of his contract but Hutchison said the timing of the coach's media 'campaign' was no coincidence.
Backed by a strong run of form to catapult the Dogs into top-four contention, Beveridge has recently been reported to be on the brink of an extension.
'This has been a coach who has been largely unavailable to the media for a long period of time, and we're now seeing — which is a positive thing, by the way — him open up and be available and vulnerable,' Hutchison said at the time.
'He's getting a terrific hearing from everywhere that he does interviews at the moment.
'It's been Sheedy-like, in my mind. And again on the weekend he got favourable coverage through the papers.
'Is he playing the Bulldogs on the break here with this PR campaign?'
Cornes said Beveridge was 'playing the media on a break'.
'I find it incredibly amusing that he's detested the media for such a long period of time and then you're getting these sort of headlines,' he said.
'I think he's sucked in the media and I don't think it's authentic. It's strange.
'Now, maybe someone has sat him down and given him that feedback (that he hasn't made himself available enough) and he's taken that on board and it's been good for the club, and I'd rather coaches speak than not.
'But for 10 years, he's hardly spoken, and now because his contract is up for grabs, he's available to everyone.'