Worst Coach

[Alex99]

What kids? At the point where he left, we had just one solitary teenager on our entire list - Fungus Watts. How was he supposed to play some of the kids if he'd steadfastly refused to draft any for almost his entire tenure as head coach?

Bock, Rutten, Mattner didn’t really start getting a real go until Neil Craig took over. Yes they played a few games but not as much as they should. However, i do agree with what you said.

 

[Crow-mo]

How was he supposed to play some of the kids if he'd steadfastly refused to draft any for almost his entire tenure as head coach?

if we accept your premise: what was our recruiting team, our board and head of footy operations (JR) doing during this period?

 

[Alex99]

if we accept your premise: what was our recruiting team, our board and head of footy operations (JR) doing during this period?

Offering him alternative paths to take but at the end of the day (nice Ayresisum) Gary Ayres made the decisions and the buck stoped with him.

 

[WALL-e]

As I believe it, didn't he have final say....as opposed to our current Rendell final say system.

 

[cmndstab]

How bad could our list possibly have been given that we should have won the premiership the next year?

There was nothing wrong with the already developed list. We had quite a good list in terms of the players ready to go in 2005. The problem was that he failed to bring into the club and develop more than a scant handful of youth during his tenure, giving us problems in recent times.

 

[Alex99]

As I believe it, didn't he have final say....as opposed to our current Rendell final say system.

Yep, that’s the way i remember it. It was Gary’s way or no way.

 

[marvin]

He's not as bad as all that.

Sure, he has to bear some of the accountability for our disastrous drafting and recruiting during his tenure - his decision to override his recruiting staff on Angwin because his Hawthorn connections would help him straighten the kid out being the glaring example - but others at the club were also involved. And it's not like we didn't have our fair share of misses in 1997-99 before he arrived.

But we were a rabble in late 1999 when he arrived. Chronologically, we were only a year removed from a premiership, but with Modra departing, and the treatment of other players (Connell and Herbert in particular) left a lot of rebuilding to do.

 

[KUNG FU]

The administration shouldn't have given him as much power as he had. It was common at the time, but now its very rare for even the most established coach to bear any genuine influence on the decision making process. See: Malthouse v Hine.

 

[AFC979810]

I think its Cornes - purely for the fact if he coached two more games we would have had access to 'The Chad' and his little brother through the Father - Son ruling...

Plus the fact his exit led to Robert Shaw (shudder)...

Good thing I don't hold a grudge 16 years on.

 

[TheMelbourneCrow]

Ayres, to think Macca almost quit footy because of that guy

 

[Allbetsroff]

Gary Ayers thinks that Gary Ayers has the roll with the punches.

 

[Southerntakeover]

There was nothing wrong with the already developed list. We had quite a good list in terms of the players ready to go in 2005. The problem was that he failed to bring into the club and develop more than a scant handful of youth during his tenure, giving us problems in recent times.

Ah yes. Problems, as evidenced by our clear streak of on field misery.

Way over blown.

This obsession with youth always suprises me. The aim is to build a list capable of winning a premiership, not to compile a team with maximum young guys. Ayres built a team that could, and probably should have won the cup. Craig was, and still is, the beneficiary of that.

 

[Crow-mo]

Offering him alternative paths to take but at the end of the day (nice Ayresisum) Gary Ayres made the decisions and the buck stoped with him.

so nothing then? haven't any of you stopped for a second to appreciate how fantastic that sounds?

 

[Crow-mo]

Craig was, and still is, the beneficiary of that.

Shhhh... never say that

 

[ralph1970]

my recollection is that we were well and truly on the way down in his last (half) year. the playing group looked really stale and i felt we were in for at least a couple of hard years. i don't think it was because we didn't have some good younger players, but that he wasn't playing or developing them. i think thats why we surprised in craigs first couple of years as coach. had ayres stayed around, we probably would have delisted/traded them away for some late 20's top ups.

 

[FlyingCrow]

I put him (Ayers) ahead of Graham Cornes who is well ahead of Shaw.

Lets not speak of Shaw. His biggest asset is that it led us to Blight.

The Ayers era recruiting was poor, but the club were also chasing that elusive third flag.
Did get us into finals, and nearly a GF. I didn't mind some of his tactics. He lost the players and once that happens you cant stay at the club.

I rate him ahead of Cornes because Cornes had a golden chance to make a GF and let Essendon run over the top of us, whilst leaving Scott Hodges on the pine. Like him or loathe him, he was a genuine goal scorer that was mismanaged by Cornes.

Then Craigy, his player preparation and match day performance is miles ahead of Ayers, Shaw and Cornes.

Then The Messiah. Blight, had something Craigy does not have. The ability to see a weakness in the opposition and exploit it with the most unlikely player. Coupled with Criagy's player preparation it was a great fit.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Was a Gary Ayres fan. Certainly by 2004 he'd done his dash and it was the right time for a change but we had a genuine crack at winning a flag under his reign and made 3 finals series in a row.

I've mentioned this before but he won me over early on with his treatment of Mark Ricciuto. Details are a little hazy now but we lost a bunch of games early in his first year. Ricciuto was being played predominantly deep forward and as the losses mounted the fans were screaming for Roo to return to the midfield. Ayres didn't budge. He eventually did return to the midfield and we found out later that Roo had been playing with cracked ribs and Ayers was protecting him by playing him forward. Ayers never sold out his man, never explained to the critics why Roo was playing forward and of course never flagged it to the opposition that Roo was playing sore. He just copped the abuse, did the right thing by the player and got on with it. Given it was his first year it would have been tough. Respect.

Plenty on here begrudge him because of Carey. Ridiculous. Sorr-f___ing-ree for trying to win a premiership.

He was also criticised heavily for being stubborn and not making moves on matchday; two characteristics that epitomised Neil Craig in his two best years - 2005/06. Craig was clearly a fan of some aspects of Gary's coaching.

 

[cmndstab]

Ah yes. Problems, as evidenced by our clear streak of on field misery.

Way over blown.

This obsession with youth always suprises me. The aim is to build a list capable of winning a premiership, not to compile a team with maximum young guys. Ayres built a team that could, and probably should have won the cup. Craig was, and still is, the beneficiary of that.

It's pretty well recognised that premiership teams usually have their large majority of players in the middle age range, something that we've missed out on almost entirely because of the lack of young players left in the club after Ayres' tenure. We've been able to turn out good on-field performances in spite of the age disparity on our list after 2004, not as a result of it. It's taken us half a decade to turn that disparity around, and in some senses it's still not where it should be.

Having good youth on your list and developing them is not the same thing as kicking out all the older players and playing the youth when they're not ready, which I'm certainly not an advocate of. But to leave us with an average of one decent young player for every year of his tenure? You need three a season to stick around and play AFL footy to keep a list ticking over. One is simply not enough. The importance of bringing good youth into a club cannot be denied. The only alternative is to routinely "trade up" in trade week, something we succeeded at, to my memory, only in the case of Scott Stevens. I may have forgotten someone though.

Edit: Massie and Torney were pretty fair trades, I guess. I may be being overly harsh here.

I'm yet to be convinced that it was all Ayres' fault (and I wonder where the rumours about him taking control of recruiting and overruling his recruitment staff came from, since I'd certainly never heard of them before I signed up to Bigfooty), but the reality is as senior coach, he must shoulder some of the blame, at least.

 

[marvin]

I'm yet to be convinced that it was all Ayres' fault (and I wonder where the rumours about him taking control of recruiting and overruling his recruitment staff came from, since I'd certainly never heard of them before I signed up to Bigfooty), but the reality is as senior coach, he must shoulder some of the blame, at least.

It wasn't just a Bigfooty thing - the Herald Sun also reported after Angwin left Carlton. I can't find the actual Herald Sun article, but it's reproduced here.

The relevant bit:

It also was revealed this week that Adelaide recruiting staff were reluctant to draft Angwin in 2000, but were overruled by coach Gary Ayres and assistant Peter Curran.

Angwin, grandson of former Hawks playing legend Andy Angwin, was rated the equal of any talent in that draft.

Ayres and Curran, former Hawthorn players, believed the grandfather connection was sufficient promise of Angwin's pedigree.​

 

[FlyingCrow]

It wasn't just a Bigfooty thing - the Herald Sun also reported after Angwin left Carlton. I can't find the actual Herald Sun article, but it's reproduced here.

The relevant bit:

It also was revealed this week that Adelaide recruiting staff were reluctant to draft Angwin in 2000, but were overruled by coach Gary Ayres and assistant Peter Curran.

Angwin, grandson of former Hawks playing legend Andy Angwin, was rated the equal of any talent in that draft.

Ayres and Curran, former Hawthorn players, believed the grandfather connection was sufficient promise of Angwin's pedigree.​

Angwin had the pedigree, it is just that he preferred the bong.

 

[frednerk33]

A wide variety of views here. Can't possibly agree that NC was a beneficiary of Ayer's recruiting nor team building nor game plan. Kick it along the boundary and then kick it in isn't a game plan... he had every individual going for the ball... he was a sh*thouse coach without a methodical approach, but filled the hole at the time.

 

[Crow-mo]

A wide variety of views here. Can't possibly agree that NC was a beneficiary of Ayer's recruiting...

doesn't matter if you agree, check the lists.

 

[Mismatched]

Plenty on here begrudge him because of Carey. Ridiculous. Sorr-f___ing-ree for trying to win a premiership.

He was also criticised heavily for being stubborn and not making moves on matchday; two characteristics that epitomised Neil Craig in his two best years - 2005/06. Craig was clearly a fan of some aspects of Gary's coaching.

Yeah agree, whilst I'm a little pissed off that we didn't more seriously chase Pavlich if rumours are true that he wanted to come home at that stage, I'm not entirely sure we couldn't have picked up Carey for peanuts had we left him for the draft. But besides that, I think the decision was reasonably sound, the bloke was arguably the best player to ever play the game, he only needed to be 60-70% of his former self and he'd still be a gun KPF. Unfortunately whenever he looked to be getting a roll on, he'd cop these freak injuries like colliding with square goal posts and obtaining career ending kneck injuries.

Pavlich would have been the better choice in hindsight and we probably should have seen this at the time, but this doesn't necessarily mean the decision to recruit Carey was out and out a bad one.

 

[PCORF]

Ayres didn't do a bad job despite making some bad mistakes here and there. We still managed a winning (I think something like 55-52) record under him.

But Shaw had to carry a side that was struggling with injuries and had all sorts of problems. Remember that evening against West Coast in 1996 at Football Park, we made a great start to the season and then got toasted badly at home. The team gave up ... luckily it didn't the following year.

I think Craigy is a good coach, but its his players who have make the mistakes when it counts the most. Of course Craig has made some mistakes.

 

[Vader]

Ayres didn't do a bad job despite making some bad mistakes here and there. We still managed a winning (I think something like 55-52) record under him.

But Shaw had to carry a side that was struggling with injuries and had all sorts of problems. Remember that evening against West Coast in 1996 at Football Park, we made a great start to the season and then got toasted badly at home. The team gave up ... luckily it didn't the following year.

I think Craigy is a good coach, but its his players who have make the mistakes when it counts the most. Of course Craig has made some mistakes.

We should all be thankful for Shaw's list management legacy, with many of our premiership players arriving during his reign. However, as a coach he was deadset ordinary. I still can't comprehend why they ever appointed him, noting that his previous job involved taking Fitzroy to the wooden spoon (mind you any other result would have been a miracle given the material he had to work with at the Lions).