Robbo: North’s clash with St Kilda this week is a grudge match, no matter what Brett Ratten says

Mark Robinson goes inside the week Brett Ratten was sacked by St Kilda, detailing the class of one party and the brutal, condescending nature of the other.

Brett Ratten, North Melbourne caretaker coach looks on during the round 17 AFL match between Geelong Cats and North Melbourne Kangaroos at GMHBA Stadium, on July 09, 2023, in Geelong, Australia. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)

Brett Ratten says it’s not personal, but it really is.

His caretaker role at North Melbourne might pull up stumps after this week and it just so happens the opposition is St Kilda.

One win.

That’s all he wants.

A win over the Saints would be sweet for Brett Ratten. Picture: Getty Images

One win to gather some smidgeon of self satisfaction from what has been a wretched 12 months for him.

How tantalising that it’s against St Kilda.

Ratten was sacked by the Saints, told, certainly by their actions, that he wasn’t good enough to coach them. It didn’t matter that they didn’t have anyone to replace him - or so they mischievously declared at the time - but it was not going to be him.

Sacked by the Blues for Mick Malthouse and then sacked by St Kilda for Ross Lyon.

AFL boss Gillon McLachlan last week labelled Stuart Dew’s departure a “hard-edged” decision, but it had nothing on the brutality branded on Ratten.

It doesn’t matter what Ratten has publicly said about this weekend’s match, it is a grudge match, underpinned by a hatred of how a club he gave five years devotion treated one of its own.

The Saints treated him appallingly. Re-appointed for two years he lasted a couple of months before the decision-makers assassinated him.

They made him beg for his job, too. A whole week of Ratten singing for his survival. “We certainly owed him honesty, so we‘ve given him complete honesty through the course of the week and that we felt the decision was likely to go against him,’’ Saints president Andrew Bassat said at the time.

“We wanted to give him every chance to convince us we were wrong.’’

How terribly condescending. Ratten should’ve got off his knees and walked out the door on the Monday before being officially sacked on the Thursday.

But that’s not Ratten’s go. He’s a decent man.

Ratten’s departure from St Kilda was handled poorly. Picture: Michael Klein

On the Thursday night, while he waited in the Moorabbin car park to be summoned upstairs by Bassat and told the fateful news of his sacking, Marcus Windhager’s old man turned up at the club with his son’s car keys.

In the pouring rain, Ratten got out of the car, said hello, and took the keys upstairs to the players’ locker room so Marcus would have them the next day.

He would be sacked 30 minutes later. But the looming sacking wasn’t about to stop Ratten doing the right thing.

He’s never really spoken about what happened at the end at St Kilda.

Last December, he sat for a chat in the Warrandyte pub, where he spoke candidly about what took place and the role played by senior club figures.

Later, he asked to can the interview because there was little point throwing grenades at his old mob. Again, decency to the fore.

One thing he said, though - and I hope he doesn’t mind - was: “I would say I’m still frustrated with some of the things that happened. I can’t deny that. So, I can’t completely let that go. Time will heal that frustration with some of the decisions and some of the people, too.’’

In a truly remarkable turn of events, about six months later Ratten was asked to accept the role as interim senior coach at the Kangas when Alastair Clarkson took a leave of absence. Again, it was the decent thing to do.

North Melbourne have lost every match under Ratten since he took over as interim coach. Picture: Getty Images

His part-time role of 45 hours a week was suddenly 70-80 hour a week, which put on hold somewhat his recent foray into planting and growing Japanese maples for market.

It’s been a labour of love. He’s coached eight games for eight losses and it seems an eternity ago when, as he prepared for his first game in charge against Sydney in Round 10, Ratten said he was hopeful his players will ‘do it for Al’ this week.

Fast forward and it’s an occasion for the players “do it for Ratts’’.

Footy’s a mix of systems and processes, personnel and confidence. But it’s also about people, motivation and pride.

The Kangas lacked all of that and more in last week’s insipid loss to Hawthorn, so to “do it for Ratts’’ as a slogan-slash-motivator this week is not a stretch because last week they did nothing for nobody.

At least this week, they can do something for Ratts.

How long that keeps them in the game is not the point, but at least they would have a cause.

Reckon Clarkson would love to make it happen in his first official week back.

And Ratten? He’d be chuffed because this one is very personal.