Ablett’s history at the Suns

FORMER Gold Coast coach Guy McKenna has dismissed suggestions Gary Ablett was unwilling to play through pain and strongly rebuked rumours the Suns players didn’t want him as their captain.

Speaking on The Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast, McKenna also revealed Ablett almost reversed his decision to join the Suns from Geelong at the end of the 2010 season.

“I know he got cold feet at one stage,” McKenna said.

“I was just coaching, and my logic was that if he turns up to pre-season, then we have got him, and if he doesn’t, we don’t.”

McKenna couldn’t have been happier when Ablett finally signed a five-year deal which made him the highest paid AFL player at the time.

Ablett was relatively injuryfree during McKenna’s four seasons with the Suns, playing 76 of a possible 88 games, with the shoulder injury he suffered against Collingwood in Round 16, 2014 the most serious.

But Ablett later came in for serious criticism for allegedly not being prepared to play through injury, a tag his former coach doubts.

“I’ve got my view into why Gaz is not big into the painkilling stuff, and I think that’s a personal issue with him, with his background,” McKenna said. “That’s probably all I need to say on that.”

McKenna brought the voting tallies for Gold Coast’s 2014 captaincy to the Sacked podcast recording session to show all but one of the 44 players voted for Ablett.

He later asked the player who hadn’t voted for Ablett – the now-Richmond forward Tom Lynch – if he had a problem with the Suns skipper.

Lynch embarrassingly confessed he thought he had voted for Ablett but had made “a completely honest mistake”.