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Wayne Harmes

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Wayne Harmes
Personal information
Full name Wayne Harmes
Date of birth (1960-02-09) 9 February 1960 (age 64)
Original team(s) Oak Park
Height 176 cm (5 ft 9 in)
Weight 85 kg (187 lb)
Playing career1
Years Club Games (Goals)
1977–1988 Carlton 169 (86)
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 1988.
Career highlights
Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com

Wayne Harmes (born 9 February 1960) is a retired Australian rules footballer in the Victorian Football League.[1]

Football career

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Recruited from Oak Park, as a youngster Harmes was perceived to have a lot of talent, finishing third in the 1976 Morrish Medal and winning The Sun newspaper's "Sunkick" competition.[2] He was a grandson of Len Smith[3] and the great nephew of Norm Smith (whose namesake medal he would win in 1979). Harmes debuted in 1977 for the Carlton Football Club, going on to play 169 games for 86 goals until his retirement, due to weight problems in his later career, in 1988. Throughout his career he was considered "hard at the ball" and whilst not tall (176 cm (5 ft 9 in)), he was able to outmark taller opponents.[4] A solid and very well-built (90 kg) player, which allowed him to throw around his considerable strength and made him a tough player. He represented Victoria in State of Origin in 1979 and 1986.

1979 VFL Grand Final

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Harmes' crowning achievement as a player was in the 1979 VFL Grand Final where he won the inaugural Norm Smith Medal for best player on the ground during a Grand Final. The match itself became part of football folklore for the last-minute heroics displayed by Harmes – he slid along the ground and knocked the ball back into play to set up the winning goal, scored by Ken Sheldon. A debate emerged whether the ball went out of bounds or not at the point Harmes knocked it back in however new footage was found in 2023 that showed that Harmes did successfully keep the ball in.[5]

The match was the first of Harmes' three premiership wins, with him being a part of Carlton's 1981 and 1982 flags.

Statistics

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[6]
Legend
  G  
Goals
  K  
Kicks
  D  
Disposals 
  T  
Tackles
  B  
Behinds 
  H  
Handballs 
  M  
Marks
  #  
Played in that season's 
premiership team
Season Team No. Games Totals Averages (per game) Votes
G B K H D M T G B K H D M T
1977 Carlton 54 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 0
1978 Carlton 37 17 4 6 181 52 233 65 0.2 0.4 10.6 3.1 13.7 3.8 5
1979# Carlton 37 24 25 26 304 103 407 105 1.0 1.1 12.7 4.3 17.0 4.4 12
1980 Carlton 37 11 5 3 116 67 183 47 0.5 0.3 10.5 6.1 16.6 4.3 0
1981# Carlton 37 15 11 7 186 69 255 51 0.7 0.5 12.4 4.6 17.0 3.4 4
1982# Carlton 37 21 14 12 253 88 341 107 0.7 0.6 12.0 4.2 16.2 5.1 7
1983 Carlton 37 19 4 8 233 90 323 112 0.2 0.4 12.3 4.7 17.0 5.9 8
1984 Carlton 37 12 2 9 112 60 172 51 0.2 0.8 9.3 5.0 14.3 4.3 0
1985 Carlton 37 19 13 20 184 79 263 88 0.7 1.1 9.7 4.2 13.8 4.6 4
1986 Carlton 37 19 6 2 231 104 335 104 0.3 0.1 12.2 5.5 17.6 5.5 12
1987 Carlton 37 0
1988 Carlton 37 11 2 10 76 34 110 24 2 0.2 0.9 6.9 3.1 10.0 2.2 0.2 0
Career 169 86 103 1877 746 2623 754 2 0.5 0.6 11.1 4.4 15.5 4.5 0.2 52

Honours and achievements

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Team

Individual

Post-playing career

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After his playing career, Harmes has been widely outspoken for his views on the current state of Australian rules football, particularly the latest 2006 AFL rule changes. He has claimed that the game is starting to resemble basketball and bemoans the lack of contested possessions, which were commonplace in his playing days.

In 2006 Harmes appeared in a television commercial for Toyota's Memorable Moments series, where he was filmed in a recreation of the final moments of the 1979 Grand Final (with Stephen Curry and Dave Lawson). The commercial was filmed at a local park and took several takes to get right, which caused a large degree of pain for Harmes, he later said.

In 2006 Wayne Harmes coached the Macleod Football Club in Melbourne's Suburban Diamond Valley Football League (DVFL), Now known as the Northern Football League (NFL).

In October 2008, Wayne Harmes was appointed as Senior Coach of Lower Plenty Football Club in the Northern Football League (NFL).

References

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  1. ^ Trevor D. Jaques, Andrew McLeod (2005). Australian Football: Steps to Success. Human Kinetics. ISBN 0-7360-6005-7.
  2. ^ "Tonight's winner faces Hawks next week". The Football Record: 3. 26 July 1977.
  3. ^ "Coach's Welcome Home". The Age. 26 July 1961.
  4. ^ "Century for Wayne Harmes". The Football Record: 11. 18 June 1983.
  5. ^ "Rhett Bartlett on X". Retrieved 6 November 2023.
  6. ^ "Wayne Harmes". AFL Tables. Retrieved 14 October 2021.
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