St Kilda great Lenny Hayes inducted into the Australian football Hall of Fame
Want to know why Lenny Hayes was so tough on the footy field? Look no further than his mum Elizabeth, with one piece of blunt advice to a young Hayes seting the tone for the new Hall of Fame inductee.
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A group of Greater Western Sydney players had a recent lesson on how Lenny Hayes’ insatiable appetite for the contest almost formed part of his DNA.
Hayes, now a midfield coach at the Giants, was “set up” when ex-teammate and fellow GWS assistant Adam Schneider started a meeting with footage from the Saints’ clash with North Melbourne in Round 5, 1999.
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It was Hayes’ first AFL game. In one passage, he controlled the ball close to the SCG boundary line when a freight train masquerading as Glenn Archer crashed into him at full force. Hayes was skittled as Archer coolly stepped across him.
“Schneids showed it the other day to the Giants’ boys,” Hayes told the Herald Sun. “I was starting a meeting and he was taking the p--- out of me.
“The boys loved it. The hit was great, but they really loved the (Archer) step over.”
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The 19-year-old debutant got to his feet and threw himself back into the contest. That would have infuriated yet still impressed Archer at the same time.
“It probably served me right,” Hayes said. “I was tiptoeing along the boundary and visualising hitting up Stewie Loewe with a bullet pass. Then, whack, ‘Arch’ has come out of nowhere. It was a good hit, right up the middle.”
It was a symbolic launching pad for a career spanning 297 games and 16 seasons, with Hayes’ resilient approach never wavering, despite individual and team hurdles.
“I wasn’t quick, I didn’t have a huge leap or huge kick; I just loved playing in the midfield and being hard at the contest,” Hayes explained. “That what I prided myself on.”
Hayes has never enjoyed talking about himself, but he’s happy to make an exception following his elevation into the Australian football Hall of Fame.
“It’s a great honour, it’s kind of hard to sum up 20 years in the industry,” he said.
“I’m very lucky to have played with some great clubs – from Pennant Hills (junior club) to the NSW-ACT Rams and St Kilda,” he said.
He praised his parents, and in particular, his wife Tara, who is the mother of his two sons Hunter and Jacob, for their support over the years.
“My coaches were so important to me,” he said. “There was David Noble and Stevie Wright from the Rams and onto the Saints, the main influences were Grant Thomas and Ross Lyon.
“When I first got to St Kilda it was great to play with (Stewart) Loewe, (Robert) Harvey and (Nathan) Burke, then through the mid 2000s we had (Fraser) Gehrig and (Aaron) Hamill and obviously (Nick) Riewoldt, (Justin) Koschitzke, (Brendon) Goddard, (Nick) Dal Santo, (Luke) Ball and others.
“I sort of feel this recognition for me, without those sort of blokes, just doesn’t happen.”
Only the elite win elevation to the Australian football Hall of Fame. But a sign of Hayes’ status is that he won immediate admission following the five-season requirement after retirement.
Hayes expended as much blood, sweat and tears as anyone in chasing the club’s elusive second premiership in the first decade of the 2000s – only to fall agonisingly short.
Adjudged the best player in one Grand Final, and in the top two from his own team in another, his trademark grit, competitive streak, tackling ferocity, loyalty and capacity to lift his team proved critical.
He was part of the glue that kept the Saints together, despite two heartbreaking Grand Final losses. He and his teammates formed a special bond, which still includes weekly Zoom sessions during the coronavirus lockdown.
“Some of them have been doing it a bit tough (during the lockdown), so it is good to check in once a week and have a laugh and a beer.”
Hayes overcame his own hurdles, including two knee reconstructions and a heart condition he kept to himself and club doctors for a season.
Along the way, he became the footballer’s footballer.
When he announced his retirement late in the 2014 season, Saints teammates took to wearing “I Love Lenny” T-shirts while his fiercest opponents took to social media waxing lyrical about him.
So where does Hayes’ competitive streak come from?
He gets his skills from his dad, Chris, who grew up in Melbourne, before moving to Sydney, where he turned his son into a Swans fan.
He gets his toughness from his mother, Elizabeth, who raised four kids after a marriage breakdown when Lenny was 11.
“Mum worked full-time and looked after us four kids,” he recalled. “I’ll never forget a day when I said to her before school, ‘I’m sick mum, I don’t think I can go’. She said: ‘No, you’re going’. I said ‘OK’ and went to school and threw up everywhere.
“The sick bay rang mum so she had to leave work to pick me up. We got out to the car and she said ‘You don’t look that sick to me’. That was her way of saying ‘You’ve got to just get on with it’.”
Hayes grew up in the Sydney suburb of Eastwood, and played footy at Pennant Hills with a kid called Mark McVeigh (who is an assistant coach at the Giants with him now).
They played with the Rams, and were drafted two picks apart – McVeigh to Essendon at No. 9 and Hayes to St Kilda at No. 11.
Sydney had three earlier picks – Nic Fosdike (No. 3), Ryan Fitzgerald (No. 4) and Jude Bolton (No. 8).
“I was rapt to go to a Melbourne club like St Kilda,” Hayes said.
“Stevie Wright said after the draft, ‘You’re going to have to dye your hair blond and become a party boy.
“I didn’t get that until I got down to the Saints and learnt about a little bit about their history.”
Fortuitously, Hayes made his debut at the SCG, allowing his parents, siblings and school friends to attend.
“In those early days I would play across half forward because I wasn’t big enough to play midfield,” he said.
“When Thommo took over (in late 2001), he put a lot of faith in me. I was injured at the end of 2001 and he said to me, ‘You’ll have a good year next year’. I thought that’s a good vote of confidence from the new coach.
“He persisted with me in the midfield. We were a good side back then. We lost that preliminary final (to Port Adelaide) by a kick over there and then played in the 2005 prelim.”
But Hayes says the 2009 side was the Saints’ best.
“We won 19 straight (in 2009). We just had that feeling walking up the race each week that if we play anywhere near our best, we are just going to win.
“That Grand Final (against Geelong) was like two heavyweights going for it. We traded blows all day and unfortunately that Matty Scarlett toe-poke helped to get them in front.”
The 2010 Grand Final was another heartbreaker.
Hayes was dominant in the drawn game, kicking a vital goal from 50m out in the last quarter – “I knew if I hit it sweetly, I’d be right on my distance” – then a behind late in the game that squared the ledger.
Hayes won the Norm Smith Medal in the drawn game, but the Saints easily lost the replay the next week.
He had a second knee reconstruction in 2011, then played out the 2012 season without telling teammates he had a leaky heart valve which required surgery at season’s end.
“I had come back from the knee, had a routine ECG done and then had to get some follow up tests,” he said.
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“I was able to put it in the back of my mind. There was no potential ramifications … the club wouldn’t have put me out there if there was any risk.”
Incredibly, Hayes won his third best and fairest that season.
Even in his last season, he finished second in the 2014 best and fairest.
“I probably could have got another year or two out,” he said. “But we were on the bottom of the ladder, my groins were a bit sore and I thought it was time to let the likes of Seb Ross and Jack Steven get to work.”
Hayes retains his passion for the Saints, but his focus now is on helping the GWS players achieve that premiership that so narrowly eluded him.
Originally published as St Kilda great Lenny Hayes inducted into the Australian football Hall of Fame