Up against the best team in the competition in Sydney and having battled three significant injuries on the night, Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge entered last night’s press conference proud as punch of his players despite a 14-point loss.
That narrative would come shortly, but firstly, as he glanced out across a vastly empty media room in the bowels of Marvel Stadium, Beveridge volunteered the following to the only journalist present, News Corp’s Ed Bourke.
“Before you ask me a question, can I just say, I commend you for being here, Ed Bourke,” Beveridge said before the formalities got underway.
“One of the hardest working journalists in our industry, for you to be the only one here, I don’t know whether that’s outstanding or it’s just become the norm that there’s 10 vacancies.
“So well done mate, great to have you at the press conference.”
Before we go on, there were around a dozen journalists at the game working for a variety of outlets. SEN was there doing our usual post-game interview that aired live on AFL Nation, while we covered the game from a written perspective remotely.
As News Corp’s Jon Ralph posted on X, it’s understood more journalists wanted to attend Beveridge’s press conference but were waiting for players to exit a Sydney post-match meeting. The room for John Longmire’s presser was much more full.
In this case the journos were waiting for players to come out of a Swans post match meeting so they were delayed. Under the new media policy it’s the best time to get one on one interviews. But agree in an ideal world we have more journos at press conferences.
— Jon Ralph (@RalphyHeraldSun) May 23, 2024
But it opens up the perfect opportunity to address what is becoming an issue across the league, one that is only going to grow as the news cycle becomes faster and faster.
From the perspective of someone sent to cover the game but with multiple responibilities, attending the majority of press conferences is generally seen as a low priority.
There are very few coaches who go out of their way to provide a detailed insight into the contest they just witnessed, volunteer the tactics they got wrong and got right, or even comment on controversial incidents. Basically, put a line through most things that would get a click.
Craig McRae is exceptional at taking a room full of journalists for a ride and getting them to feel engaged with what he’s saying.
Chris Scott – love him or hate him – is often must listen because you never know when one of his famous spiels about the game is coming.
Beveridge himself has had some of the biggest press conference moments of all time, both good and bad. They are few and far between.
There are a small number of others across the league who can create headlines and drive interest in the game with how they speak to the media. The ones who don’t, well, they don’t need to be named.
A typical example - how many times have we heard coaches say post-game: ‘I haven’t seen (insert potential match review incident, controversial contest, intriguing umpire decision) so I can’t comment.’
Is that what the public wants to read? Obviously not, but it is in a coach's best interest - despite the fact that it may only take 20 seconds to watch the vision - and that is where the divide lies.
As someone who knows the industry, it would and does dominate headlines for the next day if a coach wants to comment on anything even moderately controversial. The initial article drives plenty of traffic, hundreds call into stations like SEN with their perspectives and then our hosts add their voice to the debate. It’s exactly how it should work from the media's perspective in terms of driving conversation and interest in the game.
It's no wonder why coaches don’t do that. Just as players are taught early in their careers, don’t go out on a limb, don’t give anyone an opportunity to criticise you, stick to your talking points and then get out of there with your reputation intact.
Otherwise, you end up like Jack Ginnivan, who became arguably the most recognisable footballer throughout 2022 and was a constant headline-drawer.
No doubt many players don’t want that sort of focus on them. But contrary to public belief, my colleagues in the industry aren't out to ruin careers, but write articles that their analytics are telling them will be read far and wide.
Coming back to coaches, the narrative out of last night’s pressers were similar. Beveridge thought his players “showed enormous character” in the gritty loss, while Longmire was happy with the performance but said his side still had some work to do in the contest.
Ultimately, it’s the job as a journalist to read into the narratives and report the ones that are both representative of what has been said and interesting to the audience.
But put simply, the coaches' narratives are ones that do not move the needle and you would have been given short odds for similar responses to the ones said by Beveridge and Longmire. Quite often, a journalist or even a general footy fan, would be able to predict somewhat what a coach is going to say to a question before they respond, such is the unimaginative nature of most responses.
It’s a bit like a Year 12 English essay. For those well enough media trained, it’s easy enough to take any question, adapt it to your pre-prepared talking points and then plug in an answer in a way that says nothing that a 10-year-old watching the game couldn’t have seen.
While they translate well into video content for immediate consumption - Seven and Fox do these brilliantly in real time - our numbers, and likely those of all the outlets covering AFL, say there is little interest in written comments such as these.
"You never lose and feel like a winner, but in my books our players are winners tonight - I thought they were outstanding."
— 7AFL (@7AFL) May 23, 2024
Luke Beveridge's summary of the Bulldogs' battle with the Swans. pic.twitter.com/xUPoBWaM7C
Longmire’s antics in his coaches box during Thursday night’s win made for more interesting viewing than what he had to say in the aftermath. That’s an indictment on how far we’ve come.
Is there an answer? Can it be fixed? Do journalists need to ask better questions? Is the onus on the coaches and players to give better answers? As always, the answer is somewhere in the middle.
Brodie Grundy gives away a 50m penalty, and John Longmire is NOT happy. 😡
— Fox Footy (@FOXFOOTY) May 23, 2024
📺 Watch #AFLDogsSwans on ch. 504 or stream on Kayo: https://t.co/c5VwhmeFbG
✍️ BLOG https://t.co/x0w4Twv7Ms
🔢 MATCH CENTRE https://t.co/JxwFBTJksC pic.twitter.com/GoAMEmhEHm
But it’s not a non-issue. Outside of Victoria and certainly in Sydney and Brisbane, post-game press conferences are far more sparse and as media budgets become more constrained, watch what becomes the least important to cover.
Luke Beveridge has innocuously raised a point that needs to be addressed because as it stands, what should be marquee viewing after a game is often as uninteresting as the last minute of an eight-goal loss.