If football clubs are to learn lessons from St Kilda’s recent history, it’s that open communication, hard conversations and engagement at all levels and in appropriate forums is preferable to a late charge towards the truth that ends in decisions such as Brett Ratten’s sacking that the board described as a “heartbreaking” one.
This needs trust, cool heads and people not worried about keeping their jobs, having all the answers or making mistakes.
The dejected Saints after a loss to the Western Bulldogs.Credit:AFL Photos
It’s clear that Ratten wasn’t, as everyone conceded, the problem at St Kilda but part of a wider club issue that meant the chances of success were reduced as leadership voids opened up, roles became unclear, lines of communication became clogged, messages to players suffered and no one knew who was supposed to turn it all around.
That doesn’t make anyone involved lesser people, just that they became part of an environment that drifted below what is needed for consistent high performance. The players sensed it so are enthused at the change.
The board needed to be stronger when it had doubts about the football program and the decisions being made within it. The transition from head of football to CEO needed to be handled better to ensure the football department did not suffer. The discussion around list decisions needed to be less defensive and the assessment of players more balanced.
The on-field leaders needed their lens to widen so their own performance was not their only measure of success.
That assessment did not come just from the pages of the executive summary of the review that St Kilda released on Friday but from sources with knowledge of what led to the broom being swept through their football department.
Interestingly, the review committee, which spoke to former greats as well as those working on the inside, had not specifically recommended Ratten be sacked but identified enough problems that president Andrew Bassat, the founder of online giant SEEK, was troubled.
Bassat wrestled with the fact his gut was telling him he might have to make a change he did not relish making given the board had only extended the coach’s contract by two years in July, a decision that now can be seen as a symptom of the underlying issues.
Ross Lyon with St Kilda president Andrew Bassat.Credit:Getty Images
He triangulated the data, heard from the incumbent who could not convince him he was the Saints next premiership coach then, with a heavy heart, made the call he thought was in the club’s best interests. That hurt Ratten in a way only he will be able to describe and also hurt the president who knew a good man when he saw one in the coach.
That Bassat made the decision so late was because, across the board, not enough had been dealt with sooner. Early wins masked issues, sugar hits from trade acquisitions fuelled energy before eventual realities saw blame shifted elsewhere, to the midfield, or the selling of home games, or to players who had not come on as hoped, to goalkicking or to fitness.
Despite the review and the new crew involved, residual damage from that inaction followed by brutal calls can be dangerous which is why the appointment of the sometimes gruff, yet always straight shooting and fair Geoff Walsh as football manager is critical.
The board won’t die wondering about what is happening in the football department, and they won’t be left in any doubt as to what he thinks of their questions, for better or worse. That will suit Bassat and new coach Ross Lyon.
Lyon has assembled a group who know how to drive performance and growth. He feels ready to delegate to Lenny Hayes, Robert Harvey, Brendon Goddard, Dave Misson and those who remained including Corey Enright doing team defence, David Rath in strategy and Damian Carroll in development. Jarryd Roughead and Graeme Allan’s roles will need to be defined.
Despite the shock and disappointment at the decision on Ratten, most within football think the Saints will improve, in the short term at least, as Lyon puts in train what he described on 3AW as a simple model that relies on sound planning and hard work.
“We need to identify the sort of team and individuals we want to be and what action will get us there and commit to that action until you get what you want,” Lyon said.
The challenge for the coach and those around him will be to resist implementing the same, sometimes mad, routines that got them close to the flag in 2009 and 2010 but ultimately left them without a premiership cup and in the decade that followed, as Walsh so eloquently put it, irrelevant.
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