Gary Ablett flies home from WA to be with family in Victoria

Geelong’s Gary Ablett has left his club’s Western Australia hub to fly home to be with his family. Putting his playing future under a cloud.

Geelong's Gary Ablett flew home on Saturday.

Geelong superstar Gary Ablett has flown out of Western Australia and returned home to Victoria on Saturday.

The star Cat flew home and landed back in Melbourne on Saturday afternoon, according to The Age.

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Ablett’s manager Liam Pickering confirmed the news ahead of Saturday’s AFL action getting underway.

“I haven’t spoken with him yet but I know he boarded a plane this morning and will obviously miss the next two games,” Pickering told AFL Nation.

“He’ll want to play again”.

The move to fly home means Ablett will miss the Cats’ next two games in Perth before he potentially rejoins the team in Queensland.

Ablett this month revealed his son Levi suffers from a rare degenerative disease. He opened up on his son’s condition for the first time in an Instagram post before expressing how tough it will be for him to leave wife Jordan and Levi on their own for at least the next five weeks.

Ablett’s wife Jordan posted a photo of Levi to her Instagram account on Friday night from the Royal Children’s Hospital.

Gary Ablett's wife Jordan posted this photo of their son Levi from the Royal Children's Hospital to her Instagram last night ahead of Gary leaving Geelong's WA hub today. pic.twitter.com/JqGcJGoE6m

— Triple M Footy (@triplemfooty) July 18, 2020

Geelong coach Chris Scott said the club wouldn’t stand in the way of Ablett leaving whenever he felt he needed to.

We’ve put a lot of thought into it but really at the end of the day it’s an intensely personal decision for Gary,” Scott said.

“He’s decided to speak, or at least elaborate, a little bit publicly on it. I think really he should be the only spokesperson in regard to his feelings and to an extent his plans because we consider our role as one of support for whatever he needs.”

Fans hearing the news were quick to believe the flight home to be with his family could be the end of his unbelievably stellar career. Ablett is in the final year of his contract with the Cats.

Amidst everything else, it's bloody sad to think we may have witnessed the end of Gary Ablett Jr's career. The best player of his era. https://t.co/qqZCccgW6b

— Brett Sprigg (@BrettSprigg) July 18, 2020

We may have seen the last of the GOAT 😩 https://t.co/YaObWXsbI1

— Jack Hudson (@jhudson_10) July 18, 2020