As Andrew Bassat pondered the “troubling” results of the review he was conducting into the club’s football performance, he joined football and business heavyweights on luxury liner Seabourn Quest to celebrate the mad Saints’ fan and trucking magnate Lindsay Fox’s 85th birthday.
As they travelled, the Saints’ faithful, including Fox, Bassat and Gerry Ryan, did not miss the chance to discuss the club’s fortunes as they cruised from New York to Montreal while eight other teams played finals, at one point separating from the party to brainstorm about what lay ahead at the club.
They were general chats among mates rather than specific deliberations on the coach, but meetings continued after Bassat returned as he realised he needed to take charge and seek opinions from a range of people on what was required to push the Saints beyond the middle rungs of the ladder.
It was dawning on him that, despite extending Brett Ratten’s contract as coach until the end of 2024 midway through the season, he did not truly see the 51-year-old in the frame when he pictured the next St Kilda coach to hold up a premiership.
Perhaps his conclusion, based on the review that he led with support from CEO Simon Lethlean, board member Jason Blake and recently sacked North Melbourne coach yet respected administrator David Noble, was not right.
He grappled with that decision while making an easier one, convincing experienced football administrator Geoff Walsh, a man who can have the hard conversations Bassat now realised should have been had earlier, to join them.
St Kilda CEO Simon Lethlean and club president Andrew Bassat prepare to justify their decision to sack Brett RattenCredit:Getty
Walsh, set to start in November, made a couple of media appearances last week, where he said the industry viewed the Saints as having “a degree of irrelevance”, but he was not involved in any way in the decision to remove Ratten.
That was something for Bassat and Lethlean to ponder. Former coach Ross Lyon was available. They did not need to get the Lyon on the line, but they would be able to determine his level of interest in the role without doing that. After all, finding someone who knows what Lyon is thinking is not hard at the Saints.
Perhaps he could take on the role for a limited time with the idea of handing the job over to someone in the football department being groomed for such a role. Someone like Lenny Hayes. Everyone loves Lenny.
Luke Beveridge has a year to run on his contract at the Western Bulldogs and the Saints powerbrokers have often hinted he’d be a person they would love to see in a Saints’ polo. Beveridge, however, is committed to the Bulldogs and is potentially extending beyond 2023. Nathan Buckley is heading to the US in February and is settled in the media. Leon Cameron has joined Sydney. Before extending Ratten, the Saints had been interested in Alastair Clarkson’s intentions. He has since joined North Melbourne.
Days gone by: Could the Saints target Ross Lyon to return as coach?Credit:Sebastian Costanzo
The problem the club had was that fewer than 100 days had passed since they had locked in Ratten until the end of 2024. They had not made their reservations about him clear to him then, nor as they fell out of finals contention in the back half of the year.
They liked and respected him as a person and knew to make the brutal call on him would reflect poorly on them and the club. And, as their hearts grew heavier at the prospect of sacking him, they knew they had not given him every chance to succeed in his role.
They had failed Ratten and they knew it.
Finally, on Monday, less than 24 hours after the coach assessed potential talent at the combine, Bassat and Lethlean told Ratten his job was on the line. They say they wanted him to convince them they should stick with him. He fought for his job, but he could not convince them his leadership style was what the team required.
St Kilda coach Brett Ratten has been sacked following the club’s review of its poor second half of the season.Credit:Getty Images
On Thursday night, the board met as the condemned Ratten waited at the club to hear his fate, and decided to end his contract and pay him out. They did not reveal his shortcomings to justify their decision, but it was clear they had decided they wanted a coach with a harder edge.
Many suspect they already know who that person is although Lethlean said on Friday that is not the case.
But the interpretation of his words “we will act quickly and decisively” can only be that we have a target we are confident we can land. Clubs don’t go through this heartache to run a process for the next best untried assistant.
They steeled themselves for inevitable criticism in the belief the end will justify the means, and made the call.
That’s hard on Ratten and those who surround him as, for a second time in his senior coaching career, a club decided there was someone better than him to lead the club. Carlton are yet to finish a home-and-away season in the top eight since they replaced Ratten with Mick Malthouse at the end of 2012.
The business of winning premierships is a hard business. St Kilda have been the worst at it for more than a century. Their decision-making process in the past six months deserves criticism, and many will be wondering how the head of the football department can be promoted to the CEO’s position while the coach is sacked.
But only time will tell whether Bassat and Lethlean can eventually justify the call, or whether they add to the growing dissatisfaction with the way AFL clubs treat their people.
What happened to Ratten and, before that, Ben Rutten at Essendon, can only be described as rotten.
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