Quizzed about the outcry before training at Whitten Oval on Tuesday, Beveridge did not hold back. "Any open message in the public domain and doubt around the integrity of an umpire's performance for me is disgusting," he said. "I'm always concerned about the message it might send to the community. "As I said after the game, it's swings and roundabouts. "We are always, after every game, thinking we could have got this one and maybe could've got that one, but we're silent on it because we know that's just the game." Before being appointed Bulldogs coach for the 2015 season, Beveridge coached at both junior and senior amateur level and is fierce in his views about the protection of umpires.

"In a sense it's disappointing," Beveridge said of the criticism. "We train and play a certain way, so it is a little bit disrespectful to our players and how hard they go at the ball. "You've got young kids who are in their second year, who are just putting their head over the ball and attacking the game." It's not the first time Adelaide and the Bulldogs have butted heads and follows the controversy involving brothers Daniel and Michael Talia and the perceived leaking of sensitive information before last year's elimination final. AFL football operations manager Mark Evans called for calm on Monday and said a lopsided free kick count was relevant only if some free kicks were wrong or were missed.

Beveridge agreed. "If you deserve a free kick, you get one," he said. "The message to young umpires out there is to keep pursuing your profession, keep pursuing your pocket money if you're a kid and one day you could be an AFL umpire." Crows coach Don Pyke said he had spoken with AFL umpires coach Hayden Kennedy on Tuesday to gain clarity around some of the issues in the free-kick count. "And we move on," he said. "It's fair to say on reflection it was a number of free kicks which were our doing, and we have got to improve in those areas and we will keep focusing on doing that. It certainly wasn't a reason we lost a game of footy on Saturday night." Beveridge defended the use of the much-maligned "shot clock" on Tuesday, which lead to a bizarre ending to North Melbourne's defeat of St Kilda on Sunday.

With the Kangaroos leading by a point, Mason Wood was awarded a free kick in the forward pocket with fewer than 30 seconds on the clock, and was therefore able to literally watch time run out with the shot clock on the big screen. "I hope we keep the shot clock," Beveridge said. "What you try and do when you're just up, is you're trying to get possession, you're trying to control the ball, you're trying to get a mark inside 50. "So if a team is good enough to do that, they should be afforded that 30 seconds." "What it does, is it gives the umpire clarity and takes the decision making element out of it."