Brett Ratten lashes umpires: ‘I don’t know if it’s worth tackling’

St Kilda paid the price for wasting opportunities on goal against Geelong but the side’s coach Brett Ratten had other gripes post-game.

Ratten’s Saints went goalless in the first quarter. Pic: Michael Klein

A dumbfounded and frustrated St Kilda coach Brett Ratten has queried the merits of instructing his players to tackle their opponents after some dubious officiating from the field umpires on Friday night left him seething post-match.

The Saints racked up 87 tackles against Geelong at Marvel Stadium, yet were only rewarded with three holding-the-ball free kicks for their efforts.

“To think you have 85 (sic) tackles and you get three free kicks for the day – 85,” an exasperated Ratten said post-match.

“I don’t know if it’s worth tackling – just set up behind the ball and flood back. I didn’t think we got the reward for our effort around the tackling component of the game, that was slightly disappointing.

“I feel for the players … it’ll be interesting to have a look at how those balls got distributed, too.”

When further pressed about players seemingly not being penalised for throwing and/or dropping the ball, Ratten replied: “You said it, I didn’t say it. It must be frustrating you … if that’s a handball then jeepers.”

Compounding things for the Saints was another foot injury to influential big man Rowan Marshall, who needed to be subbed out of the game.

Ratten admitted the club was unsure as to the exact nature of the injury, but it seemed as though it was a recurrence of his plantar fasciitis. The coach said he was hopeful Marshall had not aggravated a separate foot injury suffered in the pre-season.

Marshall will have scans to ascertain the extent of his latest foot complaint and Ratten conceded the complexion of the game changed when the ruckman was subbed out.

“We didn’t get to have our momentum around the footy and things like that and the long-down-the-line plays between the arcs,” Ratten said.

“You can see from our performances when him and (Paddy) Ryder came back into the team, it just changed dramatically and they’re quality players.

“We need Ryder and Marshall playing and that gives us a lot of confidence to use the footy, especially around the stoppages when you can get some really good field position and territory.”

It was an arm wrestle on Friday night but Geelong got the job done. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Brad Crouch also spent time off the field with a “knock to the face” and he’ll get scans, too, to determine whether or not he suffered a minor fracture.

Above all else, the Saints were let down terribly by their goalkicking against the Cats, kicking themselves out of the contest with a woeful 5.17.

“Probably for a couple of weeks we haven’t finished our work, even last week we kicked 15 points as well (against Gold Coast),” Ratten said.

“Tonight we got some really good looks but couldn’t do it.

“When you look at the numbers, and the form they (Geelong) have been in, we’re trying to build momentum as a team, and that performance tonight around the ball and our tackle numbers and inside 50s, they were very good … we just didn’t quite do what we want to do and that was put it through the sticks.”

Young forward Max King was the chief culprit with a concerning 1.5 but Ratten maintained the faith that he would fulfil his potential as a top-10 draft pick.

“Max is a terrific young player, second-year player,” Ratten said.

“The real pleasing aspect is he played against some really good defenders and he put himself right in the picture and he got to great spots and he is just going to keep learning.

“For him to have six shots on goal, gave a couple off – he’s going to put it together, whether it’s next week or in a month I’m not sure, but … he’s not far off it.

“You have a chat about it. Footy clubs can be interesting, you’ve got a lot of people there and everybody can jump on one person and you get too much information, so we’ll just keep going through the process that we are (putting in place) … he doesn’t need too many voices.”

Originally published as Brett Ratten lashes umpires: ‘I don’t know if it’s worth tackling’