AFL world turns on Western Bulldogs coach after 'tasteless' attack

Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge's attempts to defend midfielder Adam Treloar from criticism have backfired, with the premiership coach accused of going too far to defend his player.

Despite the Bulldogs pulling off a thrilling one-point win over Brisbane in the semi-final two weeks ago, Treloar's individual performance was put under the microscope.

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He bounced back in resounding fashion during last weekend's thumping preliminary final victory over Port Adelaide, which earned them a place in the grand final against Melbourne.

After Treloar's semi-final performance was criticised by the likes of former players Kane Cornes, Jonathan Brown and Nick Riewoldt, Beveridge wasted no time in evening the score on behalf of his player.

Beveridge felt the criticism had been particularly harsh, considering the controversial circumstances surrounding his departure from former club Collingwood and subsequent recruitment by the Bulldogs.

If you’re going to fail in life, fail at something that is noble. Fail at something you can dust yourself off and be proud that you had a go,” Beveridge said.

“If you’re failing at trying to pull people apart and bring people down like two or three journalists did this week, I don’t know how people around you can live with you, how they can lie in bed with you, how they can look at themselves in the mirror.

“For a guy like Adam, people know he’s had some challenges over the journey. It was just really poor and vindictive stuff and it was really distasteful. So I was just so happy for him tonight.”

His extraordinary comments weren't necessarily well received by various members of the media, with Cornes questioning why Beveridge would 'bring my wife into those comments after a game'.

Though most commentators felt Treloar had proved their criticism wrong with his stellar preliminary final performance, they also felt Beveridge went a step too far.

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While Caroline Wilson pointed out on Footy Classified that Beveridge's comments were likely for the benefit of his own players rather than a genuine shot at the media, Cornes was not convinced.

While the former Power premiership star acknowledged that Beveridge was potentialy hoping to fire up his players, Cornes said it nonetheless felt unnecessarily personal.

“I’m not sure what Luke Beveridge was saying, the people who failed, talking about Jonathan Brown, Nick Riewoldt and Eddie McGuire — they’re pretty successful people," Cornes said.

“They were really strange comments from Luke Beveridge and I hope if he had his time again, he wouldn’t say that. I appreciate he was standing up for his team, but to bring people’s partner’s into it, their wives and tell people they’ve failed when they haven’t was a strange level of commentary after such a famous victory.”

Fellow panellist Craig Hutchison suggested Beveridge had indeed been making a personal attack against Cornes, saying the Dogs coach 'lacked dignity' and his words had been 'totally unreasonable'.

The debate continued beyond TV screens, with AFL Daily podcast host Damian Barrett suggesting there was a pattern of behaviour with Beveridge.

“I don’t know why he needs to go down this path," Barrett said.

“He’s got a history of it.

“The commentary around Adam Treloar that came out of the semi-final performance was absolutely valid, it was justifiable, it was actually necessary.

“If you’re a football commentator in that critical commentary space, you have to look at what happened there. It was a poor performance. But I don’t think anyone questioned Adam Treloar’s character. "

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