The AFL's latest rivalry between first time finals hopefuls Gold Coast Suns and a battling St Kilda has heated up as Suns' CEO Mark Evans hit back at Saints coach Ross Lyon over his 'offensive and out of order' comments.
"There was a lot of hard work to get to a position where we finally get some wins at the front end of the season," Evans said on SEN.
"We haven't always had the best history at stuff. We lost a lot of players, we had to rebuild. We knew we were going to reset through the draft."
"We found it offensive and out of order. It is unusual in a pre-game interview. It is hard to see that those words would just fall out at that particular time. We didn't like it."
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Evans was referring to comments made by St Kilda boss Lyon, who addressed the issue of Gold Coast's amount of concessions from the AFL in a pre-game interview with Fox Footy.
"Chock full of talent aren't they, the AFL nepo baby," Lyon said, drawing a bemused reaction from Fox Footy's Sarah Jones.
The Gold Coast Suns claimed their eighth win of the season over the Saints, pressing on to what the Queensland club hope is the first finals appearance in their history.
Picks 1 & 2 in the 2019 draft, Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson were once again instrumental in their sides victory.
Anderson picked up 36 disposals, while Rowell impressed in a low scoring affair with 15 tackles and 24 possessions of his own.
Ben King, the No. 6 pick in the 2018 draft, continued his excellent season with 2.1 to move into second place on the Coleman Medal leaderboard.
Meanwhile the Saints have sunk to 14th on the ladder, despite having plenty of opportunities in the third quarter to turn the tide, could only manage 1.6 to ensure the Suns ran away with an important away victory.