He won the Norm Smith Medal twice, adjudged best on ground in 1986 and 1988 and is one of only four players in the history of the AFL to do so.
[9][10][11] In 2020, Ayres revealed that the circumstances that led to his retirement from his playing career with Hawthorn at the end of the 1993 season, was after a disconnect with senior coach Alan Joyce and his frustration after being dropped to the reserves side.
After Blight's resignation in 1994, following Geelong's defeat to the West Coast Eagles in the 1994 Grand Final, Ayres was appointed Geelong Football Club senior coach for the 1995 season after Blight handed the coaching reins to Ayres.
In the 1996 season, Geelong under Ayres finished seventh with thirteen wins, one draw and eight losses, where they made it to the qualifying final losing to North Melbourne.
In the 1997 season, Ayres guided Geelong to finish second on the ladder with fifteen wins and seven losses, but however lost to North Melbourne again in the qualifying finals and were eliminated by the eventual premiers Adelaide in the semi-finals.
In 1999, at the end of a disappointing 1999 season where Geelong under Ayres finished eleventh with ten wins and twelve losses and after the board of Geelong Football Club, that was led by CEO Brian Cook, refused to offer him a contract extension beyond the 2000 AFL season, Ayres quit as Geelong Football Club senior coach to take the coaching position at Adelaide where Malcolm Blight had, again, just resigned.
[20] However, during the 2004 season, the club with Ayres found themselves struggling again where Adelaide sat twelfth on the ladder with four wins and nine losses after Round 13, 2004.
[22] Though he had been given the opportunity to stay for the rest of the 2004 season, he told the Adelaide board that if he could not coach the following year, he would leave immediately.