"The old saying is, you play with fire, you get burnt. That's the [AFL] environment," Ratten told SEN. "You know fully well when you get in there that you are going to be under enormous pressure and scrutiny, and especially at a club like Carlton that cops a lot of media focus and there is a lot of expectation.
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"That expectation should never wane from the football club because it has been one of its greatest strengths, but also behind the scenes that can be its greatest weakness because it does put some ... stress and pressure, not really on the coach but also on the playing group ... and they have got to carry sometimes that burden." - Brett Ratten
Read more:
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/b ... z268kUxiCR^^
Just goes to show that a club can't afford to put a bloke in as senior coach who feels the weight of expectation as a burden, rather than an opportunity to achieve something great.
This is why the most successful coaches seemingly have very healthy egos. Most people with normal characters wilt under pressure. A few actually rise to the challenge. A senior coach who thinks pressure and expectation is a bad thing to put on senior players because it's some kind of burden?? Wow. That's just missing the mark entirely.
Malthouse may not be the kind of bloke you invite over for dinner, but I don't think he sees a club's expectations of success as a cross to bear. He may be doing this purely because his ego demands it, but at least he won't feel crushed under the weight of expectation.
Another interesting quote from that article is that Ratten said "We always had a footy subcommittee meeting with Greg Swann, Richard Newton, Sticks and Adrian Gleeson. We always caught up and had a chat about where the team was"
Not sure how healthy those kinds of meetings are.
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