“I’m very honoured to be the St Kilda Football Club coach. I’m really excited about our list and where the club’s heading, and it’s a great opportunity for me. We need to get more success at this footy club, and when pre-season starts, we’ll be pushing really hard as a coaching group but also as a playing group to make sure we get that.”

When were you informed of the official decision, firstly, and what was your personal reaction after such an intense period when you left Carlton?

It was interesting.  I asked my wife to buy a Powerball ticket and she did, and then when I got the news from Andrew [Bassat] in regards to the coaching job, I said to her ‘I don’t think we can win Powerball twice in one night!’.  So I was very fortunate and rapt that this has come to me and my family.  We have had some things that have happened in our lives and Jo’s support – she’s been a star – and the kids as well... so it’s really about the family, not just me, and the next phase of it will be about our family and the connection that we have at the St Kilda Football Club, that we hope is a long one.

What have you learned second time around?

Probably as a young coach, I tried to do a little bit too much and cover off bases across the whole footy department, where probably being older now I’ll probably just try and play to my strengths. And we say that to our players all the time, ‘play to your strengths’. We say that to players, so why wouldn’t you do that as a coach?

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What can people expect from a Brett Ratten-led St Kilda?

You can expect a bold footy team.  And that’s not reckless when I talk about ‘bold’, but it’ll be how bold we are in the pursuit of a victory. But to also see our supporters... I want to see our supporters come along on the journey as well. They’ve been fantastic, they’ve stuck fat by us and we need to make sure that along the ride they’re a part of it, because they’re so important. Our people are so important to us and we want to make sure they come with us.

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A lot has been made about the next appointment being about winning a premiership.  You’ve got three years at the helm, how far off is it?

How quickly can you jump? I worked with ‘Clarko’ [Alastair Clarkson] for a long time, and you’ve got to get yourself roughly into that top-four position, because you need a double-chance in case something happens.  We haven’t played finals in a while, so our first step will be let’s make finals and then see what we can do.

So what have you seen from this group that makes you so confident that they can take that next step?

When you look at Hunter Clark, Rowan Marshall and those other young guys… we spoke about this with the staff and the players. We roughly know what our older boys are going to do, but we don’t know what our younger blokes are going to do. And that’s Josh Battle, how much more growth is in him? Max King hasn’t even played a game yet, Jack Bytel hasn’t played a game. We’ve got a lot of young men in that 20-year-old bracket – Coffield, Paton, the list goes on – they could all come in and have big influences next year, but they might not do it all at the one speed.

So hopefully, in two years’ time, we’re talking about their performance and what you’ll see is hopefully when they do that list of 40 players for the All Australian, St Kilda have got a few in there. Because we need a few in there, and we haven’t had players in that squad for a while, and if we do it’s only one player.  So we need to get our players into that A-grade bracket if we can quickly, and I think our youngsters have that ability.

Are you looking at major changes to the list?

Like all lists, there needs to be change and what we need to do is bring talent into our football club. And if there’s players there that would like to come to the St Kilda Football Club and are talented, we want them to come.

What’s the first thing you’re going to focus on?

I think this group has the ability to turn things around quickly and in a way, you dare to dream what’s possible. Things just evolve and getting your foundation right is so critical to allow the dream that might be possible. When the Bulldogs won it with ‘Bevo’ [Luke Beveridge], did they think they were going to win it then? I had a conversation with Mark Evans years ago in ’08, and he said ‘hopefully the Hawks will win a final’. Well, one thing led to another and they’ve won the flag.

Sometimes, it just evolves and a group with momentum can put themselves in that space. We’re not talking about when we’re going to win the next silverware or anything like that, but I know you can’t win it from outside the eight. It’s pretty hard, no one has done it and I think history will show it’s not happening again!

It’s a tough job, why did you want to get back into it?

You know, people have said I was a little bit stiff to get the flick at the Blues. I’ve been involved as a player and as an assistant in a premiership and they’re fantastic, but what drives me is maybe the opportunity – and a bit of unfinished business – to see if I can get the St Kilda Football Club to the heights that we want to get to.  That’s more of a dream and something that’s personally driving me.  There’d be nothing better as a football coach – and I’ve seen David Parkin and ‘Clarko’ do it –  to hold the cup with the players.  But the influence that you have on so many people is enormous, and [to] imagine doing that is just a dream of mine.