SACKED Podcast 2024: Former Saints board member Nathan Burke on Ross Lyon’s messy departure from St Kilda in 2011

St Kilda’s board was blindsided when Ross Lyon was announced as Fremantle coach in 2011 despite his manager negotiating a deal with the club. Nathan Burke unpacks how it happened in SACKED.

Ross Lyon shocked the Saints at the end of the 2011 season by defecting to Fremantle.

Former St Kilda board member Nathan Burke has finally lifted the lid on the dramatic scenes that saw Ross Lyon walking out on St Kilda, adamant the board had real concerns about the team under the senior coach that saw them delaying a contract extension.

Burke told the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast that while St Kilda made mistakes in the process that saw Lyon leave, the board had made a concerted decision to delay an extension as it considered the club’s direction.

The board was worried about quality staff leaving the club, some damaged relationships under Lyon and the lack of investment in young kids on a St Kilda list going all-in for a flag.

Remarkably, CEO Michael Nettlefold informed the St Kilda board that the club had contracted Lyon on September 15, 2011 only to find out minutes later he was moving to Fremantle.

PART 1: ‘MY DEMISE’: BURKE REVEALS HIS ROLE IN TIGERS GLORY

Ross Lyon and the Saints after their elimination final loss in 2011.

Lyon blindsided the club in one of the most dramatic coaching exits this century, organising a lucrative long-term deal to replace Mark Harvey at the same time as manager Craig Kelly had brokered a new three-year deal for him to stay put.

As St Kilda coach Lyon had taken St Kilda into the 2009 and 2010 grand finals – and the 2010 replay – before losing the 2011 elimination final.

Lyon had a contract for 2012 but also had a little-known escape clause in that deal while also under financial pressure to sign a new deal given some failed mining investments.

St Kilda’s board and administration delayed a contract extension throughout 2011 as Lyon’s own manager Kelly denied to the star coach Melbourne had interest even though the senior coach knew they were sniffing around.

Eventually Fremantle approached Lyon and he negotiated a Dockers contract, with Kelly separately broking a St Kilda extension even though Lyon was not interested in staying.

But Burke told Sacked it was not as simple as suggesting the St Kilda board was negligent.

“There is certainly one view that we did (stuff it up) because we delayed it. That it took too long to get to the point of yes, we are recontracting him. That’s where Ross’s team thought we should have got to,” he told Sacked.

Ross Lyon days after being announced as Fremantle’s new coach.

“Internally there were some issues. Ross is a very hard man to work for. There were people leaving, good people leaving. There was a bit of a fractious relationship. You could see that the players that we were playing were all the senior guys. The young guys weren’t really coming through.

“We were chucking everything at winning that grand final and (the board was) sitting back and watching, thinking: ‘This is all or nothing. If we don’t win that (flag) we are going to fall off a cliff’.

“And we were that close but winning was wallpapering over all those cracks and as a board we could see those cracks and we were just holding back just a little bit.

“So it was a calculated decision because everything wasn’t rosy. On the field we were winning but off the field it wasn’t (rosy).”

THE NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES

On September 15 amid that backdrop the St Kilda board met to rubberstamp Lyon’s new deal after being summoned by Nettlefold.

Despite the delay the club had been told by Kelly that Lyon had agreed to a new three-year deal.

Lyon’s recollection is that he had told Nettlefold he would not sign that deal but the club CEO believed he had his man’s commitment.

“I still remember the board meeting that Michael Nettlefold came in and said, “ Yeah, the good news is we’ve agreed with Ross’s management”, Burke told Sacked.

“And his phone kept ringing”.

Craig Kelly and Mark Harvey played in the first Anzac Day match 10 years ago, with Kelly managing Harvey while he was coach.

“And it was like, ‘You better go and answer that’. He said, ‘I’ve got some reporters ringing me’. So he went out, came back in after 10 minutes, he said, (the journalists) are telling me he’s gone to Fremantle”

“So we got Craig Kelly on the phone and he didn’t know a thing. He said, “Let me call you back”. And he called back in 15 minutes and I can’t repeat the language that Craig was using. Craig was also Mark Harvey’s manager. So everything was done around the back door.”

Was St Kilda totally blindsided?

“To a large degree, yes. Was it the right way (for Lyon) to go about things. I think probably no. But we did force his hand to do that. They probably think yes. So both camps would think they are right or wrong and there is an element of fault on both sides, to be honest.”

LYON’S VERSION OF EVENTS

In the aftermath of his departure Lyon was labelled as “deceitful, duplicitous and distasteful” by broadcaster Gerard Whateley as the industry absorbed the shockwaves.

But Lyon said in a detailed explanation on Triple M in August 2022 he felt he was being deceived by his manager Kelly and felt the lack of support at St Kilda.

He lost what he described as a “significant” amount of money after investing in a mining company in 2009, which meant he needed long-term security.

Lyon said he met with Fremantle CEO Steve Rosich before the finals before rebuffing his interest, then lost the elimination final and then again told him over the phone he was not interested.

But negotiations with St Kilda were breaking down as Lyon met Kelly and asked about Melbourne’s interest, which Lyon knew was real from third parties.

Round 3: Hawthorn v Fremantle. Picture Wayne Ludbey. Ross Lyon.

“I asked ‘Ned’ (Kelly) and he said: ‘No they’ve got no interest, no one’s got any interest’. And we knew that wasn’t quite the truth, me and my wife.

“(Kelly) said: ‘Look, don’t worry about it, do the 12 months (left on his St Kilda contract) and then we’ll look to try and get you to GWS or something like that.’ I went ‘Yep, no problem’ and walked out. And my wife said: ‘This is bullshit’.”

Eventually Lyon told Nettlefold he was going to coach out his 2012 contract to give him more flexibility about his future but then was alarmed about stories immediately planted in the press accusing him of being greedy.

He was suspicious about who had leaked them.

“So I went into my lawyer and said: ‘Mate, I’m done here’. And on the way in, that’s when an offer came in interestingly enough from St Kilda, which I didn’t even look at. I said: ‘This is what’s happened, I’ve had a gutful, I’ve done the right thing, I feel like I’ve been turned on, so I’m sort of in my head done.’”

THE LIST CLIFF

Burke says the St Kilda board was not aware of the sensitivities over his financial situation and desperation to get long-term security.

“Look, we weren’t aware of his personal circumstances. Potentially if we had been, could we have given him more confidence that yes we are probably going to get there but what’s the hurry? You are playing in finals and doing well and we will get there at some stage?

“I wasn’t party to those conversations. Andrew Thompson and I were both football directors. Ross doesn’t like interference from directors, and so because Andrew had a relationship with Ross as a player who played under him, any questions that I had, I had to go to Andrew first, who then would go to Ross, and then come back and then give us the answer. So I couldn’t actually go in and ask. And that’s the way that we operated.

Ross Lyon had the loyalty of the leaders of St Kilda’s playing group during his time at the club.

“I was doing some media at the time. Ross did not like me doing the media because to some degree, I was also talking for him and the team, and he didn’t want that. So we probably didn’t have the greatest relationship, to be totally honest. So Andrew was the mediator between the two of us and I was kept at arm’s length from those sorts of things.

“So I wasn’t privy to what we told his manager and what confidence we gave him but we didn’t give him enough confidence to say we are going to go down that path, and Freo sort of trumped us.”

Burke, whose daughter Alice plays AFLW for St Kilda, believes Lyon is a huge coaching talent but says that in his first incarnation as coach he had room for improvement

“Ross was loved by the senior players. Primarily because he had his bubble, he had the senior playing group of Nick Riewoldt and Aaron Hamill and (Fraser) Gehrig and (Nick) Dal Santo and to be honest they loved the bubble because it kept the rest of the club out. It kept the marketing staff out, the supporters out, the media out. The players thought it was beautiful. This bloke is protecting us. So there was good will to Ross from influential sections of the St Kilda football club. And I think that also played a role in getting him back.

“And as our history says, we need someone to put the icing on the cake. So why not bring back the guy who baked a pretty good cake last time but didn’t quite get the icing.

“It hasn’t worked at all (in club history). No, it’s failed every single time. Let’s hope that history doesn’t repeat itself.”