St Kilda are prepared to ensure short-term pain under new coach Ross Lyon to build the foundations for sustained success after the football department review found a short-term focus had led to the fundamentals being neglected.
The executive summary of the wide-ranging review led by president Andrew Bassat found that the club lacked the capacity for vigorous debate and feedback across the club and there were issues with the coaching program.
The decision to remove Brett Ratten as coach less than 100 days after he had his contract extended shocked the football world but the review “identified significant issues in relation to our coaching program, which explained in part the inconsistency seen on-field over the past two seasons. These issues were more pronounced in the second half of the season, but certainly not confined to that period.”
St Kilda won eight of their first 11 games but lost eight of their last 11 games (with Ratten unavailable for one match in the second half of the season due to COVID) to finish 12th for the second consecutive season.
New coach Ross Lyon alongside CEO Simon Lethlean and president Andrew BassatCredit:Getty
They also identified a leadership void in the football department when Simon Lethlean transitioned from head of football to CEO as well as a need to update the list strategy to focus on the draft. Lethlean replaced Matt Finnis in that role with David Rath expecting to be elevated to football manager before the review recommended hiring an experienced football boss.
The willingness of management to debate issues with the board and the board’s ability to question what was happening was also questioned with the president resolving in the end that the club “needed more revolutionary change than originally intended.”
The club has also decided not to sell a home game in 2023 and will also apply a strong football lens to any cause games we consider. The club is already committed to the annual Pride Game with Sydney and plays in the Blue Ribbon game against Hawthorn.
The summary also identified that the review committee, which included Bassat, Lethlean, board member Jason Blake and independent expert David Noble, who finished up as coach at North Melbourne a week after former Saints coach Brett Ratten had his contract extended by two years, did not specifically recommend Ratten was removed although the style of leadership required was debated.
The review committees’ three major recommendations were to: identify and recruit an experienced head of football; improve the leadership and capacity of the coaching group; make further investment in the leadership and development programs for our players.
The club is also looking to improve their list management processes which several sources said had fallen away in the past 12 months.
In their pursuit of Collingwood free agent Jordan De Goey the board asked the football department to do further due diligence on the recruit while the club has also conceded their decision to trade in Dan Hannebery from Sydney was costly. That decision was already in train before current list manager James Gallagher started.
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