GOLD Coast CEO Mark Evans has backed coach Damien Hardwick in hitting back at "offensive and out of order" comments from St Kilda coach Ross Lyon.

In the moments before the two sides played on Sunday evening, Lyon referred to the Suns as "the AFL's nepo baby", an apparent reference to Gold Coast's access to Queensland talent, which had previously been in the sights of Saints president Andrew Bassat.

In response, Hardwick on Sunday night labelled Lyon's comments "a little bit disrespectful" and urged the Saints to "focus on their own backyard".

On Monday morning, Evans went on Melbourne radio to double down on the club's criticism of Lyon.

"I thought the comments were offensive and out of order," Evans told SEN.

"Offensive in that the word (nepotism) implies corruption and favouritism. That really stabs at the club's hard work over a lot of years. 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.

"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.

"I think it would be like saying – Ross is an outstanding coach and St Kilda have had some good moments in their history, Grand Final in 2011 – it would be like me getting up saying, 'the only reason they have made the Grand Final is because they were gifted (Nick) Riewoldt and (Luke) Ball and (Justin) Koschitzke'.

"There is so much work and effort that goes into getting to that stage. Imagine belittling the club that it was just gifted to them.

"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."

Evans added he'd also told Saints CEO Carl Dilena what he thought of the comments.

"I was walking along with him for 20 or 30 metres," he said of his interaction with Dilena on Sunday evening.

"I'm not sure if he had heard the comments by that stage. I told him we thought they were offensive. He didn't offer up much at that point in time. We don't really care.

"We get a lot of things said about us, as does every club. We aren't so worried about that. But this seemed like a whinge that was out of order and we want to stand up for our club."

Last year, Saints president Bassat said the AFL was "not a level playing field" and smaller Victorian clubs like St Kilda were at a disadvantage.

"The system is designed to favour the wealthier clubs and it's designed to favour the northern clubs, and our role is meant to be just to make up the numbers and not complain about it," he said at the club's best-and-fairest.

"It's fair to say our club is sick and tired of meekly accepting this — it's rubbish — and we are absolutely committed as a club, relentlessly, to ensure that we are given a fairer opportunity for success."