Scott Cummings has unleashed on the front cover of today’s The West Australian.
With news that Collingwood president Eddie McGuire is set to call Saturday night’s Derby between West Coast and Fremantle for Fox Footy, the front page showed the headline ‘Ed Alert’ and the caption ‘WA’s most despised commentator’ emblazoned across an image of McGuire.
Former Eagles and Magpies full-forward Cummings took offence to the sentiment, labelling it as “Sydney trash journalism”, “nonsensical” and “embarrassing”.
Cummings said on SEN Afternoons: “I’m normally a proud and staunch West Aussie but this morning I woke up and just went, ‘why, why, what is that nonsense?’
“I’ve done a little bit of digging and basically what’s happened is we’ve got an editor, who I’ve never met, from the Daily Telegraph in Sydney who is bringing Sydney trash and Eddie-hating, bashing material to WA, tarnishing all West Australians with it.
“Sure, there are some people in WA who don’t like Ed, no problem at all. We’re all aware of that, you can’t like everyone.
“Because he is Victorian and because he is a Pies man and he’s so passionate, some don’t like him.
“But it shouldn’t be on the front page of the paper. It’s a joke.”
Cummings continued: “It’s Sydney trash journalism, that’s what it is.
“If you want to bully, belittle and degrade someone, how about you do it to a criminal sitting in jail, a wife basher, or one of our many racist politicians – why don’t you do it to them?
“Not to a footy commentator. Get some perspective for goodness sake.
“It’s just a really bad reflection on West Aussies.
Find out why we have to endure the State's most despised footy commentator at the #WesternDerby, What motoring king John Hughes thinks of Labor's electric car plan, and why some WA households are at risk of being bin-shamed. All this and more in The West Australian today. pic.twitter.com/T6QipgbjfU
— The West Australian (@westaustralian) April 9, 2019
“I know West Coast supporters are parochial and get bagged for the booing they do, but what they do is they make it a really uncomfortable environment for opposition teams to go to, so they are doing the right thing for their team.
“This is a nonsensical front page article and I want to fly the flag for the good, decent West Aussies who don’t have this gutter mentality in the media.
“It’s embarrassing for Western Australia and I apologise on behalf of the normal, sensible people who don’t have this mentality.”
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However, the editor of the West Australian, Anthony De Ceglie, told SEN Afternoons that it was merely in jest.
“Yeah, there’s a level of tongue-in-cheek, definitely,” he said.
“It’s hard to get sarcasm across in a newspaper but there’s definitely a level of cheek in there.
“West Australians are very, very cheeky and one thing we don’t like is big-noted Victorians coming over and telling us what to do.
“So realistically, what it was mainly, was just putting Ed on notice.
“He’s coming over to our town, to our biggest game. Things are different over here and we just want to make sure that he realises it is a special game for us.”
Reigning premiers the Eagles and the Dockers clash in Derby 49 at Optus Stadium on Saturday night both with a record of 2-1 after three rounds of footy.
