Time to call Clarkson Saints!!!

[Impatient Sainter]

After tonights debacle Ratten doesnt deserve to continue with this team. Its time to get on the phone to Clarkson and have him in place for next year. Im sorry Ratts but games like tonight are simply not acceptable. I have never seen a professional group of footballers so mentally switched off for a game of football.

[SaintPav]

I feel sick.

[The_Dud]

Why would he possibly want to come to St Kilda?

Many better options for him if he was at all interested.

[Wayne42]

We may well never win a 2nd flag due to eternal ineptness.

[Devilhead]

My Blues mate said as much about Ratten .... he will only take you so far ...... the challenge for Clarkson to take the Saints to a 2nd flag ..... after many have failed ..... would absolute cement his reputation as the greatest coach ever.

Ratten is not the answer

[SAINT-LEE]

Ratten is a good coach, there were some absolutely guaranteed high quality coaches we just didn't even consider....

Choco is one.

After Port HE built the Rampaging Richmond team and if it weren't for the senior coach giving an ultimatum to get rid of Choco ( due to the players absolutely loving him & listening to him over Hardwick) He would've replaced Hardwick eventually and had even more success. Hardwick has followed Chocos gameplan line for line.

Now he's killing it again.

Wherever he goes he captures the players hearts. I don't know how, but he does. Players actually saying they LOVE him...and not like they love pizza.

Maybe he's a director of football and guides Ratten a bit? Or the senior...

Clarkson wants the team he leads to head to Tassie so unless you want to head to out by 2025 and be the Tassie Saints....He's supposed to be in behind closed doors chats with North & they've opened the secret door to Tassie talks with the AFL.

[Kick-it-lace-out]

After the last two weeks I tend to agree. For me, Ratten lacks tactical nous and leans on his ability to motivate. Unfortunately, this style of coaching will never deliver success.

I certainly wouldn’t be rushing to re-sign him. Let’s see how the team performs over the next 8 weeks. He has no excuses. He’s been given everything he’s asked for in terms of players/trades.

[Devilhead]

Either way Ratten ain't the answer

Doesn't have the matchday tactical abilities

[The_Dud]

Either way Ratten ain't the answer

Doesn't have the matchday tactical abilities

Doesn’t seem to be too great at the mid-week stuff either…

[Impatient Sainter]

The club simply needs to start looking for a coach that doesnt allow his team to have weeks off, like Ratten does. Tonight was deplorable in every sense of the word and Ratten doesnt deserve consideration for an extension.

[Wayne42]

He'll get his extension whether we like it or not.

[Waltzing St Kilda]

Finnis's parting gift will be to give Ratten a three-year extension.

Surprised he hasn't done so already.

Hopefully Basset doesn't allow it.

For years the club has been overrating its players and coaching staff.

Lovey-dovey family atmosphere that's not gonna win a flag.

Get Clarko.

But we'll need to collapse totally in the second half of the season to prompt the current admin to make the call.

[perfectionist]

Yep, get Clarkson and tell him to bring 15 A grade players with him.

[Teflon]

My Blues mate said as much about Ratten .... he will only take you so far ...... the challenge for Clarkson to take the Saints to a 2nd flag ..... after many have failed ..... would absolute cement his reputation as the greatest coach ever.

Ratten is not the answer

It’s too late
They’ve leaked to the media “Brett’s getting a long term deal”
We are farked
What sort of admin signs a coach now with the real test in front of him????
We are not professional we are weak as an organisation that is why we are not taken seriously
Just making up numbers
3 more years of beige Brett

[Teflon]

Finnis's parting gift will be to give Ratten a three-year extension.

Surprised he hasn't done so already.

Hopefully Basset doesn't allow it.

For years the club has been overrating its players and coaching staff.

Lovey-dovey family atmosphere that's not gonna win a flag.

Get Clarko.

But we'll need to collapse totally in the second half of the season to prompt the current admin to make the call.

Spot on
It’s a cozy mates place down there while members keep paying
Ratten is not the answer
Tonight’s nail in the coffin for mine
I can handle losing to better sides
Losing to a rabble who belted us last year when we members all saw this coming is disgraceful
How the F*** could these players not be switched on as Roo said from the first bounce??? Surely someone told them Essendon laugh at you yearly ….don’t they have any pride???
As for Ratten….fancy being out coached by the Bombers bum

[1965 Saint]

“As for Ratten….fancy being out coached by the Bombers bum”

Indeed. How embarrassing

[Scollop]

We had our chance to get a good coach for a rebuild and we stuffed it up...back in late 2013!!

Choco wanted five years and the club only wanted to offer a 3 year contract. The apologists here were telling us he was a lunatic and he'd lost the plot.

The club and the apologists told us Richo was a better option

Meanwhile Mark Williams had already proven himself as a premiership coach and he went on to help nurture the talent at GWS before Leon Cameron took over from Sheedy.

Then he went on to nurture the talent at Richmond and then he helped the Demons win a flag and end their 57-year drought

Is he now too old...and is he still a lunatic?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-27/ ... /100495586

https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/greate ... b46b39d60c

Personally, I'd love our footy operations head and footy directors and the CEO to poq before I'd change coach.

Ratts didn't recruit Gresham or Ross or Jack Billings and he certainly didn't influence their habits and the way all these guys generally play their footy as much as their previous coaches

Ratts wasn't responsible for the recruitment of Hannas or Hill and I doubt he had much say on Crouch or Higgins (If I'm wrong...happy to hear what others think and if Ratts was the catalyst for Crouch and Higgins coming to St Kilda)

Let Ratts do our rebuild and do it properly, without free agents and other mercenaries joining the list to supplement their retirement nest egg and their superannuation

[SaintDippa]

I'm no genius. Watched a million games of footy, love it, love watching the top sides play each week. You see each teams ball movement style, how players are structured with and without ball and F50 space creation ... blah blah. You get it.
Again last night as with most of the season - 15 minute spurts has papered over an underlying lack of planning.
I still have no idea what a Ratts coached side stands for or what is our ball movement style. Unless unplanned randomness is a style.
Ratts preseason said in reference to the rise of the 2021 Dees, "Why can't it be us in 22?". I've known the answer all year.
He has 3 weeks to turn this season around. Really hope he succeeds and we play finals. Any talk of a new contract now is folly.

[Teflon]

I'm no genius. Watched a million games of footy, love it, love watching the top sides play each week. You see each teams ball movement style, how players are structured with and without ball and F50 space creation ... blah blah. You get it.
Again last night as with most of the season - 15 minute spurts has papered over an underlying lack of planning.
I still have no idea what a Ratts coached side stands for or what is our ball movement style. Unless unplanned randomness is a style.
Ratts preseason said in reference to the rise of the 2021 Dees, "Why can't it be us in 22?". I've known the answer all year.
He has 3 weeks to turn this season around. Really hope he succeeds and we play finals. Any talk of a new contract now is folly.

Bang on
And Lade is a spud was well known at Tigers
Ratten hasn’t got the edge to be a top line premiership coach
He’s a nice guy assistant
But it’s all cozy down there so no hard calls will be made
And fancy signing or leaking to the media he’ll get a long term contract half way through the year
We did exactly the same with Richo
We learn nothing

[Scollop]

I'm no genius. Watched a million games of footy, love it, love watching the top sides play each week. You see each teams ball movement style, how players are structured with and without ball and F50 space creation ... blah blah. You get it.
Again last night as with most of the season - 15 minute spurts has papered over an underlying lack of planning.
I still have no idea what a Ratts coached side stands for or what is our ball movement style. Unless unplanned randomness is a style.
Ratts preseason said in reference to the rise of the 2021 Dees, "Why can't it be us in 22?". I've known the answer all year.
He has 3 weeks to turn this season around. Really hope he succeeds and we play finals. Any talk of a new contract now is folly.

Bang on
And Lade is a spud was well known at Tigers
Ratten hasn’t got the edge to be a top line premiership coach
He’s a nice guy assistant
But it’s all cozy down there so no hard calls will be made
And fancy signing or leaking to the media he’ll get a long term contract half way through the year
We did exactly the same with Richo
We learn nothing

Who was the CEO at the time and who were those on the board who rubber stamped it?

What’s changed? Finnis is currently the chief isn’t he…until the end of this year I believe

[The Fireman]

can't sugar coat that display in any way...the club is in real trouble.

here's the thing. we know that each player can play well on a given day but there is no consistency or direction this problem surely lays at the feet of the coach.
In the presser he blames the players, no talk of game plan deficiency

For awhile I thought Ratten may have been the answer....not anymore.

[samoht]

Clarko aka the human panacea and hole puncher extraordinaire.
The Hawks have stopped declining since he left them.
You are only as good as your last gig.

[meher baba]

I'm going to try to inject a little bit of perspective into all this weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I generally only support coach sackings when the coach has clearly lost the trust of the players. Ratten has clearly not done this and he needs to be persisted with IMO.

The idea that bringing in a "supercoach" can turn things around is a bit of a myth in the AFL universe (and possibly in other sports too, but I don't know so much about them). To the extent it does work, it should work best when you have a team of emerging stars who aren't playing to their best and aren't working toegether well as a group, but can be expected to respond well to the better strategies brought by the supercoach. (This arguably happened to some extent with Ross Lyon, although he certainly wasn't a supercoach when we recruited him.)

But we are not a team of emerging stars. We ave a list mainly cobbled together from players from other clubs seeking better opportunities (Howard, Jones, Butler, Higgins, Ryder, Steele, Membrey, Wood, etc.), some mature age recruits from outside the AFL (Wilkie, Marshall, Sharman), some pretty good second round draft picks (Ross, Gresham, McKenzie, Long), and a few others who weren't rated in the elite at draft time but have come on (Sinclair, Battle, Webster). We have a couple of reasonably highly-rated recruits from other clubs (Hill and Crouch), and three higher draft picks in King, Billings (who arguably hasn't lived up to his rating as a junior, but he's hardly Robinson Crusoe there) and NWM (who's only in his first year).

IMO Ratten has done pretty well to meld this assorted bunch into a reasonably well-performing team. As I have consistently said from the start of the season, we are good enough to make the final 8 and perhaps win a finals game and, if we're incredibly lucky, perhaps win two. That puts us in the same category as teams like Geelong, Freo, the Swans, Collingwood, Carlton and Richmond. You will note that we have played 5 of those 6 clubs so far this season and have beaten 3 of them, but have lost to the two teams I consider to be the best in the competition ATM: Brisbane and Melbourne. That's a good guide to our current level of ability: indeed, I think that, until last night, we were performing at a level above our expectations.

Last night we played a club which was judged by most experts at the start of the season to have a significantly more talented list than us. They've struggled with injuries and possibly with off-field issues this season, but - in a game in which they had nothing to lose and were under zero pressure - they really clicked last night. There's been a lot of criticism of our forwards and backs on this forum, but the place they really tore us up was in the middle: not the clearances, where we were largely dominant, but after turnarounds and when bringing the ball out of defence. They had more run and more pace than us in the middle, and they used what they had much more effectively. And that brought their dangerous forward-line right into the picture.

I would suggest that they are a much better side than their place on the table would indicate, and they might cause another upset or two before the end of the season.

Sure, Ratten could have made some better coaching decisions last night. But the team he was working with was about the best we could have put on the field, barring the injured Steele and DMac. (Yes, yes, I know that we weren't playing Sharman, who has apparently taken over from Acres as the GOAT, although I'd be buggered if I can see why.) It won't be easy to get lots of additional talent into our club: de Goey is an outside chance, Amon is perhaps more likely but no superstar. We're stuck with the cattle we've got and we need a coach who is prepared to keep trying to get the best out of them rather than to attempt to change everything radically. That will enable the younger talent to come on and perhaps create a stronger side in the medium term. I'm afraid that's the most we can hope for in the foreseeable future: I don't think some of you appreciate quite how much our list was trashed by the people who were in charge of our club for the decade or so prior to the arrival of Finnis and Lethlean. Rebuilding is a long-term project and we have a fair way to go.

[Teflon]

I'm going to try to inject a little bit of perspective into all this weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I generally only support coach sackings when the coach has clearly lost the trust of the players. Ratten has clearly not done this and he needs to be persisted with IMO.

The idea that bringing in a "supercoach" can turn things around is a bit of a myth in the AFL universe (and possibly in other sports too, but I don't know so much about them). To the extent it does work, it should work best when you have a team of emerging stars who aren't playing to their best and aren't working toegether well as a group, but can be expected to respond well to the better strategies brought by the supercoach. (This arguably happened to some extent with Ross Lyon, although he certainly wasn't a supercoach when we recruited him.)

But we are not a team of emerging stars. We ave a list mainly cobbled together from players from other clubs seeking better opportunities (Howard, Jones, Butler, Higgins, Ryder, Steele, Membrey, Wood, etc.), some mature age recruits from outside the AFL (Wilkie, Marshall, Sharman), some pretty good second round draft picks (Ross, Gresham, McKenzie, Long), and a few others who weren't rated in the elite at draft time but have come on (Sinclair, Battle, Webster). We have a couple of reasonably highly-rated recruits from other clubs (Hill and Crouch), and three higher draft picks in King, Billings (who arguably hasn't lived up to his rating as a junior, but he's hardly Robinson Crusoe there) and NWM (who's only in his first year).

IMO Ratten has done pretty well to meld this assorted bunch into a reasonably well-performing team. As I have consistently said from the start of the season, we are good enough to make the final 8 and perhaps win a finals game and, if we're incredibly lucky, perhaps win two. That puts us in the same category as teams like Geelong, Freo, the Swans, Collingwood, Carlton and Richmond. You will note that we have played 5 of those 6 clubs so far this season and have beaten 3 of them, but have lost to the two teams I consider to be the best in the competition ATM: Brisbane and Melbourne. That's a good guide to our current level of ability: indeed, I think that, until last night, we were performing at a level above our expectations.

Last night we played a club which was judged by most experts at the start of the season to have a significantly more talented list than us. They've struggled with injuries and possibly with off-field issues this season, but - in a game in which they had nothing to lose and were under zero pressure - they really clicked last night. There's been a lot of criticism of our forwards and backs on this forum, but the place they really tore us up was in the middle: not the clearances, where we were largely dominant, but after turnarounds and when bringing the ball out of defence. They had more run and more pace than us in the middle, and they used what they had much more effectively. And that brought their dangerous forward-line right into the picture.

I would suggest that they are a much better side than their place on the table would indicate, and they might cause another upset or two before the end of the season.

Sure, Ratten could have made some better coaching decisions last night. But the team he was working with was about the best we could have put on the field, barring the injured Steele and DMac. (Yes, yes, I know that we weren't playing Sharman, who has apparently taken over from Acres as the GOAT, although I'd be buggered if I can see why.) It won't be easy to get lots of additional talent into our club: de Goey is an outside chance, Amon is perhaps more likely but no superstar. We're stuck with the cattle we've got and we need a coach who is prepared to keep trying to get the best out of them rather than to attempt to change everything radically. That will enable the younger talent to come on and perhaps create a stronger side in the medium term. I'm afraid that's the most we can hope for in the foreseeable future: I don't think some of you appreciate quite how much our list was trashed by the people who were in charge of our club for the decade or so prior to the arrival of Finnis and Lethlean. Rebuilding is a long-term project and we have a fair way to go.

Excuses excuses
Only 1 supposed top 8 side has lost to lowly Essendon
Last night was a disgrace and the coaching staff and players should be on notice
Any talk of extension for a senior coach now is folly and unprofessional

[Impatient Sainter]

Agree Teflon we are well past excepting excuses from coaches. Richardson was loved by the players but the knew he couldnt he had NFI. Likewise Ratten he is a very very poor match day coach, he simply fails to read the game and pull ANY levers. That on top of him backing the wrong players, has eroded his credibility.