Dogs fume on trade claims
Coach denies stars shopped
THE Western Bulldogs are fuming over a report that three AFL premiership heroes were potential trades last season.
Coach Luke Beveridge denied Luke Dahlhaus, Tom Liberatore and Clay Smith were any chance to join Jake Stringer in leaving, saying the speculation was a lie.
Fox Footy claimed last night Dahlhaus was floated as trade bait, at the same time Stringer left the Bulldogs and went to Essendon.
The report said rival clubs regarded Smith and Liberatore as players who were also available under reasonable terms.
“Think about the hypothetical, your workplace . . . you actually read on the public domain that your organisation is shopping you around . . . and you don’t know about it,” Beveridge said. “You like your workplace and you actually enjoy where you work — how would you feel about that?
“So I’ve spent half a day reassuring our players that it didn’t happen. It’s really disappointing — here we are heading into Round 1 and there’s a lie online about us as a club, who love our players to death, offering them up for trade, when it didn’t happen.”
He was asked if the report had upset his players before Sunday’s season opener against GWS.
“They’re not, because it’s a complete surprise to them and I don’t think for a minute they thought it was true, which is important,” he said. “But for it to be floated and for it not to be true is unethical and it’s disappointing.”
Liberatore and Dahlhaus are out of contract at the end of the year.
“This part is reality . . . they’ll have strong market value,” Beveridge said.
Meanwhile, injury-plagued Adelaide midfielder Brad Crouch has suffered another significant blow and is about two months from returning.
Crouch had already been an unlikely starter for Friday night’s Round 1 match against Essendon at Etihad Stadium, but the news is much worse.
Crows football boss Brett Burton revealed yesterday that as the onballer returned from his pre-season abdominal injury, he had suffered groin problems.
Crouch also missed the 2015 season with a foot injury and sat out the first month of last season as he recovered from a hamstring issue.
“Crouch has been returning from his abdominal strain and, in the process of that, he’s flared up groin issues so he will be unavailable to play this week,” Burton told the club website.
The Crows expect captain Taylor Walker (foot) and Alex Keath (ankle) to return in round two, while Riley Knight (foot) is three to four weeks away from resuming.