For the Gold Coast Suns, Monday’s headlines should surround their best ever start to an AFL season, following an away win against St Kilda. However, it’s a war of words that have stolen the show, with Saints coach Ross Lyon calling the Suns the AFL’s “nepo baby” in a strange pre-game chat with Fox Footy.

After the wire-to-wire 12.8.(80) to 8.13.(61) win against Lyon’s Saints, Gold Coast coach, Damien Hardwick addressed the comments in his post-game presser.

“It’s a little bit disrespectful. What St Kilda should do is probably focus on what’s in their own backyard instead of trying to bring everyone else down. They had thirteen thousand people here today…” Hardwick said.

Gold Coast chief executive, Mark Evans, has taken it a step further on Monday morning with an interview on SEN radio.

“I thought the comments were offensive and out of order,” Evans said on SEN.

“Offensive in that the word implies corruption and favouritism, so that really stabs at the club’s hard work over a lot of years.”

“Ross is an outstanding coach, St Kilda have had some good moments in their history. Grand final in 2011. It would be like me getting up and saying, ‘Oh, the only reason they’ve made the grand final is because they were gifted Nick Riewoldt, Luke Ball and Justin Koschitzke’.

Evans went on to say that the Suns were used to belittling comments in their 15-year history, but it was time to “stand up” for the club who are in the midst of their best ever season.

Ross Lyon and the St Kilda Football Club have yet to make comment following Evans’ interview.