“Indecisive and shambolic”: St Kilda has lacked the courage of their convictions to stay the course
Sometimes it’s best to let the comedians do the comedy.
When St Kilda shocked the football world by terminating Brett Ratten’s contract just months after extending him, Titus O’Reily declared it the millionth time that St Kilda had St Kilda-ed since they had started St Kilda-ing.
I know this story is a few weeks old now but it came in my hiatus between The West Australian and SEN and the subject matter is too good to resist.
Especially given that the subject matter changed all too quickly from the sacking of Ratten to the hiring of Ross Lyon, who had left the Saints amid acrimony after 2011.
To be clear, once the St Kilda position was vacant, the decision to hire Lyon makes more than a little sense. Carlton had considered hiring him, so did Essendon. It probably crossed Collingwood’s minds before they hired Craig McRae.
We would be surprised if it wouldn’t have crossed North Melbourne’s minds but for the availability of Alastair Clarkson.
Lyon will have to change a few things this time around. He will have to manage his relationships differently. At Fremantle he ended up with football’s equivalent of George Orwell’s Animal Farm – the famous author’s take on totalitarianism and communism.
A select few held a lot of power. Others copped limited credit and more than their share of blame. Lyon’s “reign of terror” as some colleagues actually jokingly referred to it, lost favour at Fremantle for the same reason totalitarian regimes eventually lose favour – human nature. The people get sick of it.
He will have to value attack more, because every recent rule brought in by the AFL favours attack and frees up ball movement. Lyon, the AFL’s master of defence between 2009 and 2015, will have to adjust or find himself and his team swimming against the tide.
He will have to place more value on skill. You would have heard him say publicly at Fremantle: I coach effort not skill. Of course it would be nonsensical to suggest that Lyon did not value skill at all. He just valued other things more.
Players gravitate to what they believe their coach values and as a result Fremantle’s skill level suffered in comparison to competitors.
Watching the Dockers in Lyon’s declining years at the club from 2016 to 2019, the number of hittable targets missed would reach levels that would prompt those with a sense of humour to declare that some Dockers would have missed water falling out of a boat.
Lyon has been stubborn, even bull-headed in his approach. But don’t underestimate his football IQ. He has shown he can develop a football program. He has shown he can develop a workable game plan and get players to implement it.
He will be studying the stand the mark rule, the six-six-six starting positions and the protected zone and considering ways to exploit them. This will not be a list as good as the ones he inherited at either St Kilda first time round or at Fremantle.
But if were made to bet on whether he makes the Saints better or worse in 2023, I would be backing better.
Lyon quickly became the story here but when pursuing a fresh coach St Kilda turning to him is hardly left-field given the interest of other clubs in him.
He broke fresh ground in AFL tactics in 2009 and has a coaching record that has seen him take clubs to Grand Finals in three of 13 seasons, preliminary finals in another two, semi finals in another two and an elimination final in an eighth.
The real story is the Saints and their cruel dismissal of Ratten while elevating one of the men integral to the hiring and then firing of him, former footy boss Simon Lethlean, to the CEO’s office.
The Saints possess one of the AFL’s more contradictory club songs.
“When the Saints go marching in” they sing. Their recent history suggests the line should be, “When the Saints go backing out”.
And I’m not casting aspersions on the courage of their players here. Jack Steele leads them on field and he is as brave as most players in the AFL.
No, the backing out refers to the indecisive and shambolic way the Saints have run their club over decades.
About the only thing they have been frequently decisive on is the sacking of coaches.
Ken Sheldon had them in finals in 1991 and 1992 but was dumped after they dipped to 12th in 1993.
Stan Alves had them in the 1997 grand final but was dumped after a top six finish in 1998. Tim Watson lasted two years, Malcolm Blight less than a year.
Grant Thomas had them in finals in 2004, 2005 and 2006 but was sacked when two preliminary final exits were followed by an elimination final exit.
Yes, the Saints can certainly pull the trigger on a coach with a dipping record.
On most other matters though, reverse is a gear they know well.
They went to Tasmania for four seasons between 2003 and 2006, then left it to Hawthorn and later North Melbourne to harvest club-stabilising money from the Tassie government.
They played Anzac Day games at the stadium dubbed the Cake Tin in Wellington in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and then decided against continuing that.
They went to a new training venue at Seaford from their spiritual home at Moorabbin, only to return.
Even Lyon’s departure at the end of 2011 was enabled by St Kilda dithering and delaying over a contract extension for a man who, at the end of the day, had had them in the previous four finals series and almost won Grand Finals in two of them.
And more recently they opted out of building via the draft halfway through a build. After two years of drafting gave them Hunter Clark, Nick Coffield and Rowan Marshall in 2017, followed by Max King in 2018, the Saints entered into a trading frenzy to bring in Dan Hannebery, Brad Hill, Dougal Howard, Paddy Ryder, Zak Jones and Dan Butler.
And like so many other clubs before them who have opted to quit early on the draft for trades, the Saints found it put them exactly where they have been on the AFL ladder under Ratten, maybe tumbling into the bottom end of the eight with a good run with injuries and close games – or missing if things don’t go quite as well.
Mid table – the worst address on the AFL ladder where neither premierships nor prized draft picks are on offer.
And then came the most extraordinary backflip of all on Ratten.
All the while the Saints have flattered to deceive themselves both on and off the field. Colleague Jake Niall uncovered details of the AFL’s variable funding – a model that maintains the viability of all by increasing allocations to the vulnerable clubs.
It was no surprise to see GWS and Gold Coast as the most funded AFL clubs with a total of $203 million and $198 million from the AFL given between 2012 and 2021. It was not a surprise to see Collingwood and the Eagles down the other end with $93 million each.
It was a marginal surprise to see only four clubs, the Eagles, Magpies, Geelong and Hawthorn, received less than Fremantle’s $99 million.
But at the other end only the Giants, Suns and fellow frontier state team Brisbane received more than St Kilda’s $156 million.
That’s an average of an extra $5.6 million per year in funding for the Saints compared to Fremantle.
The Saints claimed in 2022 to have 60,000 members compared to Fremantle’s 56,000. At the end of 2021, the Saints reported a big profit, but still carried a $9 million debt.
Did the Saints get it wrong by re-hiring Lyon? Time will tell.
Have they got it right very often off-field in decades? Not very often, not for long enough and they have lacked the courage of their convictions to stay the course when they have made big decisions.
Some would say the Saints and Lyon have unfinished business. Unfinished business – that is the definition of the way the Saints have done their business in decades.