Congratualtions to Gary Ayres

[Sojourner]

Credit where credit is due, Ayres coached Port Melbourne to the Premiership today breaking their 29 year drought. A huge effort with no AFL listed players to choose from, only the lads that he has brought on over the past seasons since he left Essendon and went to Port Melbourne in the Senior Coaching role.

Some talk about him returning to an AFL coaching role, good luck to him if he does. I hope the day comes when like Cornes he will be given some respect for what he did achieve at the AFC and the players that he brought through into the system. For whatever reason people seem to feel the need to trash the previous coach in order to build up the next coach, I do think its an area that a number of us need to have a look at to move the club forward in, instead of being stuck in the past all the time.

[CUTTERMAN]

Yes.
but stuff him. he's got a big mouth and thinks more of himself than most would, his recent comments about Adelaide proves this.

[Hondo]

Soj, we have argued about Ayres before. I respect that you are a fan of his reign at the Crows.

From where I sit, under Ayres we slid down to 8th in 2003 and then out of the finals in 2004. Then after he leaves and we immediately make 2 preliminary finals in a row in 05 and 06 under a new coach. Did our list improve that much in the 05 pre-season?

That aside, stories I heard about the state of the footy operations in 2004 don't paint a great picture of Ayres. There's also stories that he over-rode the advice of his recruiting staff on key first round draft picks most notably Angwin and then using the pick we got for Rehn to get Bode from Port. Port then got Shaun Burgoyne with that draft pick. While Bode was good for us he wasn't worth what we gave up.

Some Geelong fans are similarly critical of his time down there.

These are all 3rd hand stories admittedly but I just post them up for the sake of the debate.

[NFC]

Yes.
but stuff him. he's got a big mouth and thinks more of himself than most would, his recent comments about Adelaide proves this.

THIS.