Ratten happy to wait for call

TWO caretakers locked in as AFL senior coaches and one to go — but St Kilda interim coach Brett Ratten insists he is happy to play the waiting game until the end of the season to find out if he will be the man to take the Saints forward.

After North Melbourne’s appointment of Rhyce Shaw as its new senior coach and Carlton confirming David Teague in the top job this week, Ratten is the last of the caretakers still sweating on an answer about his future in the full-time role.

But the former Blues coach said it was important for the Saints to take their time to make the important decision about the direction the club wanted to go in.

“It will be what it is. If the club want to wait, it’s a big decision,” Ratten said yesterday.

“Yes, we are getting some wins, but this is a long-term thing as well [that] the football club has to take into consideration. It’s not just ‘Yeah, because the footy is going well, the boys are up and about and we’ve had three our of four (wins)’ doesn’t mean you should be the senior coach.”

Ratten has guided the Saints to victory in three out of the past four games, strengthening his coaching claims with a surging victory over Fremantle last week, after taking the coaching reins Richardson.

He faces his old club Carlton at the MCG today.

Ratten said there were no major developments in his dialogue with the Saints, but he and the club continued to talk regularly.

“We still keep catching up regularly when we get the opportunity with the weeks because of the six-day set-up this week it’s a little bit harder and time’s a bit poor,” Ratten said.

“But we just keep chatting and keep catching up and we’ll just see what happens. There is a lot of things behind the scenes that the coach has to do and make sure that’s the right thing for the footy club.”

Asked if he was hopeful of completing the caretaker coach trifecta, Ratten said: “It would be nice.” from Alan