Sacked: Gary Ayres lifts lid on his final days at Hawthorn, Geelong and Adelaide
Hawthorn champion Gary Ayres reveals the bizarre highway stop that led to his Hawks downfall and the inside story of how his AFL coaching career ended at two clubs, plus the Crows’ pact to protect Wayne Carey, why he’s still coaching and more.
AFL
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The Corio Bay Roadhouse is legendary for its ham and cheese jaffles, Roadhouse burgers and coffees as the tempting last stop before Geelong’s Princes Highway morphs into the freeway back to Melbourne.
But what happened at the iconic roadstop one Saturday afternoon in August 1993 can now be revealed as a reason behind the premature end of one of the most decorated AFL careers. Gary Ayres was football royalty, but even though he was captain of Hawthorn at the time, his place within the team had been controversially usurped.
Just six months earlier, he had signed a new two-year contract. But a disconnect with coach Alan Joyce and the frustration of being dropped to the reserves brought the soon-to-be 33-year-old to the point of exasperation.
He had played in the reserves curtain-raiser at Kardinia Park earlier that day, watched the first half of the seniors then got in his car and drove home.
Along the way, he couldn't resist a quick stop at the Corio Bay Roadhouse, which may have proved his Hawthorn undoing.
“I had seen the writing on the wall … ‘Joycey’ was coach and he thought I played poorly in a pre-season game back in March,” Ayres told the Herald Sun's Sacked podcast. “He called me in and said, ‘I didn't like the way you played in the second half’.
“I said, ‘Joycey, it’s only a pre-season game … I’ve been here long enough to know what I am doing’.”
SUBSCRIBE TO THE SACKED PODCAST HERE
The five-time premiership Hawk and dual Norm Smith Medal winner noticed a few troubling signs throughout the season.
“I just got taken off if a player kicked a goal on me and I would be sitting on the bench,” he said.
“Anyway, you cop it because he (Joyce) is making the decision, then it all came to a head later in the season when I got dropped and had to play in the twos at Geelong.”
Ayres was “fired up” and “frothing at the mouth” about his demotion to the reserves. After sitting through the first quarter of the seniors in the stands he decided he had seen enough. He quietly left the ground and started the long trek home.
“I actually stopped off at the Corio Roadhouse for a coffee and a burger on the way home,” he said. “I got home and (the seniors) had been badly beaten. I shouldn't have (left) because I was captain of the footy club.
“I certainly regret that. Anyway, on Monday morning, I got a phone call from Joycey saying, ‘I need to see you’. I went in and he must have stopped off at the Corio Roadhouse too because someone had told him I had come through there a lot earlier than after the game.”
Get your footy fix on KAYO ahead of live matches returning soon. Watch classic battles from the 60s to today, docos, news and more. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >
Ayres lined up again in the reserves the following week, playing at Victoria Park on Collingwood’s Tony Shaw, who was coming back from injury. “I said to Shawry, ‘Jesus, we have come a long way, mate’.”
Ayres made it back before the finals, but the Hawks made it clear the contract he signed earlier in the season wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.
“They (Hawthorn) said, ‘We've got no money … you will have to play on a base payment of about 20 grand or something and we will give you whatever your matchies (match payments) are. I said, ‘Well, we did sign (a contract) at the start of the year. I don’t think things have changed that much’.
“I still played 17 games that year. They said, ‘No, it is either you take this (or leave). To this day, I never actually retired, I just sort of moved on.”
‘IT MIGHT BE YOU IN THE SEAT’
Ayres didn't have time for bitterness after being moved on – he was busy making a choice between two jobs.
He could be a playing coach of Frankston in the VFL or become the understudy to Malcolm Blight at Geelong.
His mentor, Allan Jeans, told him: “Laddie, I don't think there is much of a future in being a playing coach”, so Ayres took the road down the highway.
“I learnt a lot from Malcolm,” Ayres says. “His footy knowledge was amazing.
“One that sticks in my mind was the day we were playing down at Kardinia Park (in 1994) and I’m pretty sure it was Melbourne and the crowd was getting hostile about how we were coaching.
“I remember walking down with him at three-quarter-time and he thought, ‘If we don't win this game today it might be you in the seat, not me’.
“Another time we were at Waverley in the old coaches box.
“At quarter-time, we walked past this chap … on the edge of the aisle seat. He has given Malcolm an absolute spray as he walked to the huddle. Halftime has come and gone and when the siren blew for three-quarter-time, (Blight) said, ‘Watch this’.
“Malcolm has gone up to the guy from behind and leant over and went, ‘BOO!’.”
The Cats played off in the 1994 Grand Final, but were no match for West Coast, losing by 80 points. Blight called it quits, with Ayres taking over the reins.
A year on, Ayres took the Cats to a Grand Final in his first season as senior coach, but the might of an all-conquering Carlton proved too much for them.
It was the first of three successive seasons he took the Cats to the finals as he worked hard to bring about change in Geelong’s September fortunes.
THE FLAG THAT GOT AWAY
Ayres maintains a “missed mark” and a finals fixture quirk hurt the Cats in 1997 – the flag hope that got away.
After finishing second on the ladder, and being upset by North Melbourne – and a rampant Wayne Carey – in the first final, Ayres’ team had to travel to Adelaide to take on the Crows.
It was an arm-wrestle all night, but a mark not paid to young Cat Leigh Colbert in the third term – which would likely have resulted in a goal – halted the Cats’ ascendancy.
“It was clearly a mark,” Ayres said. “You could see it in the coaches’ box. I guess if we go to the rules and regs now, if another umpire had seen it, he would have potentially overruled it. Leigh was probably only 30 metres out. We had really good momentum at the time.”
The Cats lost by eight points, kicking a wasteful 9.14.
Asked if he believed Geelong could have won that 1997 flag, Ayres said: “Yeah, I really do. We had a better side in '97 than we did in ’95.”
“No disrespect to St Kilda, but I thought either of us (Adelaide and Geelong) would have won the flag.”
Geelong missed the finals in Ayres’ next two seasons.
When an opportunity arose once more to take over from Malcolm Blight – this time at Adelaide – he leapt at it, realising his grip on the Cats’ job was loosening.
“It came about quickly towards the end of ’99,” he said. “Geelong (was) struggling financially and I had approached Brian Cook to extend my contract.
“He said, ‘We are in a world of pain financially, things aren’t travelling all that well … we are not really in a position to extend any contracts’.”
The Crows offered three years; the Cats were never going to look at anything more than a season.
Colbert was leaving Geelong too, but never told Ayres the reasons for his shock departure.
“Leigh never told me he didn't feel he had the support of the other guys,” Ayres said of the speculation the young Cats skipper left after a lack of backing from senior players.
“Maybe when decisions are made, some guys don't necessarily agree with the decision, but you have to respect the decision.”
‘WE’RE GOING TO FLY THE FLAG FOR WAYNE’
Ayres’ five seasons at Adelaide resulted in 55 wins from 107 games, with the best return a preliminary final appearance in 2002.
One of the most confronting experiences of his time at Adelaide came when the club’s big recruit Wayne Carey faced off against Anthony Stevens, Glenn Archer and the Kangaroos for the first time in 2003.
It came two years after a scandal that almost tore North Melbourne apart.
The tension was such that the Crows had a plan arranged in the event that the game descended into fisticuffs.
“The only thing I said to the group was if there is going to be any trouble, we are going to fly the flag for Wayne because Wayne is an Adelaide Crows player and no longer a North player,” he recalled.
In a gripping moment where private anguish played out in a public form, Carey and Stevens briefly clashed and then Carey and Archer shaped up to each other, but Ayres expressed relief the plan never had to be enacted.
He doesn't regret giving Carey an AFL lifeline after a year out of the game, saying he wished he had coached him earlier.
“He might have had a bit of a knee and there were things he couldn’t do he once was able to,” Ayres said. “When he got to the club I used to say I wish I had him a lot earlier than what we actually did.”
‘DUCKS IN A SHOOTING GALLERY’
Coaches under the pump, Ayres says, are like “ducks in a shooting gallery”, as was the case with him at Adelaide in 2004.
“I felt as a coach I was having potshots taken at me every five minutes and of course there is that constant innuendo that (a sacking is) going to happen,” he said. “You feel like you are a dead man walking.”
His 223rd – and final – game as an AFL coach came in Round 13, 2004, with the Crows having a 32-point win over the Bulldogs.
Unbeknown to him, the Adelaide board had met the previous Thursday to confirm Ayres’ removal, with assistant Neil Craig ready to step into the role.
“They (the Crows) pretty much said, ‘We have been canvasing some players’, so when they are doing that, it puts up a red flag to me,” he said.
“You always have half a dozen (players) who think (the coach) is pretty good, half a dozen who think he’s OK and half a dozen who think change is a good thing.
“They said, ‘We feel after talking to the players, (you) can’t take this list any further’.”
After being told he was “finished”, Ayres said “the conversation went along the lines of, ‘We have got this press release and can we have you back at the club at 11am’. I said, ‘I’m going home to have a coffee with my wife, so send the press release through and I will have a look at it’.
“I went home. I had a coffee with my then wife and we had a bit of a think about it. I said, ‘I'm not going to go back for an 11am press conference’.”
MORE SACKED
‘I won’t resign’: Leppa opens up on Lions sacking
‘False front’ hid ex-AFL star’s drug, alcohol abuse
‘Stop s----ing in my face’: Why Aker was really sacked by Lions
How McCartney got over toxic bitterness after Dogs sacking
BOROUGH BOY
Ayres last coached an AFL senior game at 43; now three months short of his 60th birthday, he believes he is coaching as well as ever.
While he has never had another shot at AFL level since he was an assistant to Kevin Sheedy at Essendon, he has thrived in coached Port Melbourne in the VFL since 2008.
“The amazing boys I have been involved in at Port Melbourne and some of the successes we have had there have been great,” he said.
“One of the things that was fairly clear when I got the job with the boys at Port Melbourne was that a stand-alone VFL team wouldn’t be able to win a premiership.”
Ayres, and Port Melbourne, smashed that theory. His tenure has so far yielded two flags, including an undefeated season in 2011.
“Last year we came up against Richmond in the prelim. They were by far the best side last year. They had 20 AFL-listed players and with 20 minutes to go in the last quarter, we were 10 points in front.”
They couldn’t quite hold on, but Ayres said the “adrenaline rush” still drives him.
The uncertainty of the VFL competition in the coronavirus world is concerning for Ayres and all stand-alone VFL clubs, but he says Port Melbourne deserves a future after such an amazing history.
He hasn't totally shut the door on a return to the AFL system, but knows “every year it gets a bit more distant.
“While I still have the passion and hopefully the vision in making Port Melbourne the best it can be, I’d like to think the journey can extend.”