Ratten marches into new coaching contract
ST KILDA coach Brett Ratten said he was not looking over his shoulder worrying about the spectre of four-time premiership coach Alastair Clarkson before signing a new contract this week.
Ratten, who was out of contract at the season’s end, has inked a new deal that’ll keep him at Moorabbin until at least the end of 2024.
Clarkson, who recently met with the GWS Giants about their senior coaching position, is on the market and appears all but certain to re-join the coaching ranks next year.
Ratten, a former assistant to
Clarkson at Hawthorn, said on Friday he did not waste any time worrying whether his job was safe.
“You can worry about it, but your role at the football club is to try and win games or football or simply set the team up for success on a weekend and sometimes that happens and sometimes it doesn’t,” Ratten said.
“But I think if you get caught worrying about that and (being like) ‘Hey Clarko, how you going mate?’ and other coaches that are out, then you spend your time consumed by that and that’s not healthy.”
The Ratten deal was finalised this week, but the coach said the process started informally in the pre-season.
In a letter to St Kilda members on Friday, president Andrew Bassat said he believed Ratten was the man to lead the club to its long-awaited second premiership.
When asked where he projected the side would be by the end of 2024, Ratten said:
“Everything is not just linear movement for a team, so for us we want to just keep improving, that’s the main thing.
“You could win 13 games and not even be in it, which would be unbelievable and that’s where the game is here in 2022.”