‘I didn’t want to be there’: Dave Hughes comes clean on ‘shameless’ AFL act

An Aussie fan favourite has spoken out over an act that has seen him labelled a “traitor” after he was busted by TV cameras.

Comedian, radio host and mad Carlton fan Dave Hughes has come clean on what he was doing in the Swans rooms after Friday’s match at the SCG.

Hughes, who co-hosts 2DayFM’s breakfast show Hughesy, Ed and Erin, was spotted in the Swans rooms after the ladder-leaders ran away with a commanding 17.15 (117) to 9.11 (65) thrashing of the Blues.

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Hughes’ presence in the Swans rooms raised a few eyebrows with the Channel 7 commentators — and cameras — showing the Blues fan mingling with Brownlow Medal favourite Isaac Heeney.

“Did I see Dave Hughes before?” James Brayshaw asked. “He’s a card-carrying member of the Carlton Fan Club.”

AFL great Luke Hodge added: “He’s a 50-year-old man wearing a Carlton jumper but he had to put a jacket on because he’s in the Sydney rooms.”

Brayshaw replied: “He’s having selfies with Isaac Heeney. There he is. Shameful, that is. Why isn’t he in the Carlton rooms?”

Richmond legend Matthew Richardson commented: “What’s he doing? He should be over there talking to the Carlton boys.”

Hughesy with Heeney. Photo: Channel 7

But his appearance in the Swans rooms won’t mean he has to turn in his Blues membership as he was in the rooms for his radio show.

Pre-match, he posted a video of himself in Chinatown waiting for the light rail to the SCG where he hosted Triple M’s The Rush Hour alongside Brayshaw, before hosting a singles party at the footy for the breakfast show.

He couldn’t help himself, predicting “an almighty boilover when we beat the Sydney Swans”.

Posting a video of the moment on Instagram, Hughes captioned it: “We told our @hughesyedanderin beautiful single ladies we would take them to the winners rooms. This was really hard for me.”

His breakfast show co-host Erin Molan backed Hughes up that it was difficult for him to be in the Swans rooms.

“I’ve never seen a man in so much pain,” Molan said.

“He smiled in our first picture and then realised and frowned.”

Hughesy was called out for being in the Swans rooms. Photo: Channel 7

On Tuesday, in a regular segment on 101.9 The Fox Melbourne’s Fifi, Fev & Nick, Brendan Fevola kicked it off calling Hughes “ya little traitor”, referring to the sight of Hughes in the Swans rooms.

“That was disappointing that that got reported on Channel 7 actually,” Hughes said.

Fevola needled further: “You were smiling and talking to all the players — get outta there mate.”

Hughes: “Mate, I didn’t want to be there.”

Fevola: “You lapped it up though.”

Hughes: “The fact is, what we’re doing here is what you guys do is service your listeners. You’re the show of the people, there’s no doubt about that. Well I’m the show of Sydney. So we got some single ladies and we said ‘where can we find single men in Sydney’ and we thought we’re going to go to the SCG where the hot single men are. So we went to the SCG and we guaranteed that the ladies would get into the winner’s rooms. So if had been Carlton winning …”

Fevola: “That was never going to happen.”

Hughes said that none of his group “got lucky”.

Hughes doubled down saying: “The fact is I didn’t even want to go into the Sydney rooms and I said to our people ‘I’m not going down there, I’m leaving now’ because Carlton were terrible.”

Hughesy was repping the Blues. Photo: Instagram

Erin Molan, Isaac Heeney, Jana Hocking and Dave Hughes. Photo: Supplied

Fevola said Heeney had DMed him saying Hughes was “drinking their Gatorade and had one of their sandwiches, were eating their lollies and stuff”.

Hughes: “I was not eating their sandwiches. I hung back and then there was a chance to talk to Isaac Heeney — who is going to win the Brownlow — and I thought here is my chance.”

However, he did admitted he did actually eat some of the food in the rooms.

There was even more star power in the Swans’ rooms, with UFC great and Sydney fan Alex Volkanovski invited in to sing the team song.

The Swans win on Friday put them a game and a half ahead on top of the AFL ladder ahead of the second-placed Essendon as the side moved their record to 9-1 with a humungous percentage of 154.7.

Originally published as ‘I didn’t want to be there’: Dave Hughes comes clean on ‘shameless’ AFL act