The phone call that brought the great Warren Ayres back to Dandenong
Dandenong cricket great Warren Ayres had no thought of returning to the Panthers. Then the phone rang. He reveals how a former president led him back to the club where he’d coached a breakthrough premiership.
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It’s a grey old day at Shepley Oval in Dandenong.
It’s a win-the-toss-and-bowl day, Panthers coach Warren Ayres says as he alights from his car.
He runs an eye over the ground and says it’s looking in great condition.
So it should: with the Dandenong Stingrays out of action, no football has been played on it this year owing to COVID-19.
Ayres has fingers crossed cricket will be played on it from October, but he’s noting the coronavirus case numbers in Victoria and starting to get edgy.
Edgy isn’t a word you’d normally associate with him: bowlers rarely caught the edge of his bat in Premier Cricket. Usually they saw and heard the thwack of the middle of it as he totted up a competition-record 15, 277 runs.
Just over 4000 of them were made for Dandenong, whom he joined after a long association with Melbourne that took in 46 first-class matches.
As coach of the Panthers he led them to the breakthrough 2006-07 premiership with a pace-bowling attack of Peter Siddle, Darren Pattinson and Paul Boraston. He introduced James Pattinson to the team too.
Two years ago Ayres coached Carlton to one of Premier Cricket’s most astounding grand final victories, when the Blues chased down Geelong’s 9-409 in the final at the Junction Oval. It was their first flag in almost 40 years.
Now he’s back at Dandenong, and feeling good about it. Shepley promotes many happy memories: the premiership, watching Siddle and the Pattinsons progress to big cricket; seeing Tom Donnell, Brett Forsyth and James Nanopoulos take their early strides into what have turned out to be achievement-filled Premier careers; and admiring the dedication and organisation of long-time officials such as Michael Findlay and Ross Hepburn.
Ayres was in his more senior years as a batsman when he arrived at Dandy, but he remained a formidable player, hitting 11 centuries to take his career tally to 41. You fancy it will stand as the peak of the competition for many years (yesterday his great mate and former Victorian teammate Darren Berry called him a “goliath’’ of District/Premier Cricket).
“It was a great time for the club,’’ he says.
“We were lucky to get Siddle and the Pattinsons at the start of their careers, and we were lucky we picked up half-a-dozen outstanding young kids almost immediately when I got here. A few of them are still here — Brett, Tom Donnell, ‘Nano’ (Nanopoulos)’ — as the leading players and they’re continuing that legacy. Hopefully there’s another batch of players who can take over from them in the coming years.’’
Searching for a coach to replace premiership mentor Nick Speak, the Panthers put in a call to Ayres, who served as Carlton’s batting coach last season.
He hadn’t thought about a return, but the contact from Findlay prompted him to do so.
“No, it hadn’t crossed my mind, coming back,’’ he says.
“I thought the eight years I’d done here would be enough. There’d been a decade in between, I suppose, and there’s only half a dozen players still here, maybe not even that many. Tommy (Donnell). ‘Nano’ (Nanopolous). Brett (Forsyth) was starting out. There was the Sweeneys (Peter and Mick).
“So I said to club, yeah, give me a few days to think about it, and in the end I decided to throw my hat into the ring. Look, I enjoyed my eight years here and the leading players had made, I wouldn’t say an approach, but they’d made it clear they’d like to have me back, and that’s a nice thing.’’
The appointment was finalised in May.
If there’s one thing Ayres handles better than a cricket bat it’s a phone to chase up recruits, and he was quickly on it, casting around mostly for bowlers.
He enticed Adam McMaster back to the club, landed Jack Fowler from Kingston Hawthorn and James Maxwell from Casey South Melbourne, and nabbed the promising Braden Taeuber from Monbulk.
“They’ll all jostle for positions,’’ Ayres says.
As for the batting, he’s added Aaron Fernando, also from Casey South Melbourne.
“Statistically, the batting is quite good,’’ Ayres says.
“We need to give some of the batsmen more opportunity, in all grades really. The fourths won the premiership last season, the thirds did really well too, so there are some kids who need opportunity.’’
He says some of the senior players had told him there were players in the lower grades who were “well worth a look at, and I’m hoping when I see them I’ll think, ‘This guy is going to be good’.’’
His premiership player Dave Newman has returned to the club as an assistant coach, joining Dandenong association great Craig Slocombe, Forsyth and Nanopoulos in support roles.
It’s a fine panel, but no one is sure when it will next be assembling.
“Fingers crossed,’’ says Ayres. “We all want to play some cricket.’’
Even on the grey old days.
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