Opinion Brendon Bolton

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Eiffel 65 said:
I completely agree. Our team is too young to physically compete against seasoned bodies week in week out.

I still believe the biggest cause of frustration is the trade of future first round draft picks. It should never have happened.

It's unwanted attention the club doesn't need right now. It also makes losing less palatable.

If your team is getting smashed on the ground, the one consoling factor is the clubs first round draft pick. It brings hope to supporters.

We're now in a situation where we're watching our team get belted by 15 goals and we don't hold the #1 pick.
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For 1. You say our team is young. Then say we should have kept a pick for a player not even in the system yet who is a year younger than stocker...

We rated stocker high. We know we are young so we thought lets get a year into a player and still have a 1st this year.

No one these days trades pick 1. They hold it. So trading it to get a pick 6-12 so it can be traded for an established player was the right thing to do.

Yes we are young. And will be next year. But i believe stocker is a good get and whoever we get with the crows pick via trade will add experience.

You can complain we are too young yet you say we should have held onto our 1st. It makes us younger and gives us 1 less player
 
IMTOPS said:
What garbage, a bit of luck? Coulda, shoulda, woulda.... With a bit of luck, Carlton could be 0-9, and not 1-8. Face the facts this club is rudderless in the boardroom and in the coaches box. And someone else talking about being assassinated - how many wooden spoons does he get to rack up before he can be ‘moved on’??
This club is going nowhere at present, but it can change quickly with a new coach. I’d be bold and appoint someone for the remainder of the season from outside the club, e.g Ratten, Voss... It’s time to be ruthless, much can be salvaged with a change at the top.

On another topic, Carlton must demand a Pick 1 priority draft pick. Carlton’s record is woeful, and having traded what is likely to be Pick 1, the AFL need to intervene.

I admire people’s patience, but Bolton is not the right horse to be on.
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Being ruthless, irrational and making decisions based on emotion after poor performances hasn't yielded good results for us in the past 20 years.

Better to reassess the situation at the end of the year.

And no, we don't deserve a priority pick and shouldn't demand pick 1 in the draft. We brought this on ourselves.

If we choose to gamble with draft currency, we must accept the consequences. We need to be held accountable for our actions. Handouts should be a thing of the past, and that goes for all clubs.
 

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IMTOPS said:
I admire people’s patience, but Bolton is not the right horse to be on.
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a genius like you given the chance would have sacked thompson, dimma, buckley et al............keep squawking.........
 
HereComesJuddy said:
For 1. You say our team is young. Then say we should have kept a pick for a player not even in the system yet who is a year younger than stocker...

We rated stocker high. We know we are young so we thought lets get a year into a player and still have a 1st this year.

No one these days trades pick 1. They hold it. So trading it to get a pick 6-12 so it can be traded for an established player was the right thing to do.

Yes we are young. And will be next year. But i believe stocker is a good get and whoever we get with the crows pick via trade will add experience.

You can complain we are too young yet you say we should have held onto our 1st. It makes us younger and gives us 1 less player
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If it's Stocker + Papley + 3rd round pick (Gresham isnt happening) for pick 1, given our list build, it's a deal I stand by. It then depends a lot on what eventuates of Adelaide's 1st round pick, since I'm confident we've already hit with the Stocker selection.
 
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HereComesJuddy said:
For 1. You say our team is young. Then say we should have kept a pick for a player not even in the system yet who is a year younger than stocker...

We rated stocker high. We know we are young so we thought lets get a year into a player and still have a 1st this year.

No one these days trades pick 1. They hold it. So trading it to get a pick 6-12 so it can be traded for an established player was the right thing to do.

Yes we are young. And will be next year. But i believe stocker is a good get and whoever we get with the crows pick via trade will add experience.

You can complain we are too young yet you say we should have held onto our 1st. It makes us younger and gives us 1 less player
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It's a bad look to gamble away pick #1.

Also think we'll struggle to attract decent trade targets if the big losses continue to pile up.

We are young and I feel that we've been too quick to offload senior players from our list to make way for newly drafted talent.

I know it wouldn't have made a difference today, but could someone like Jed Lamb have been retained on the list a bit longer to help us out around the contest? I thought he was serviceable last season.
 
As soon as Craig left ( probably tied in with Trigg's exit) Bolton was going to be in a lot of trouble managing the whole gig - a few posters knew this a soon as it was announced. It was Club inexperience that saw a new coaching list ( ex Barker) in that situation. I think the Walls things is a crock of useless crapola as far as input into real coaching goes - and I don't like the thought that Walls is in there as some sort of look over the shoulder and report back to who knows who ....

Bolton has also been tasked with developing a raw playing list with very little mature player support - especially between the arcs where it matters. Despite trying the Club has been unable to attract developed mids - this is a Club fail not a Bolton fail.

High turnover combined with high injury count to important players in 2018 - pretty much saw that year as a wasted development year in fact one could argue that the Club went backwards because of the extreme nature of how bad losses were - again this is not a Bolton fail.

In 2019 Bolton has been able to engineer a much better percentage - and a few very close losses and so far 1 win - I woudl say this doesn't point to much.

What does point to something ( maybe) that can be fair criticism?

The first and only major criticism that I can ( in my own mind ) fairly make of Bolton is that he (from the outside looking in) has failed to structure a starting on ball line-up against bigger bodied opposition when he has had players available to do so.

Off the top - I think an on ball mix of:

Kreuzer/Cripps/Ed and Kennedy with rotations from Dow/SPS/Fisher and Setterfield would be far superior against bigger bodied opposition than Kreuzer/Cripps/SPS/Fisher/Dow

It seems that based on evidence of play and form certain players are definitely favoured over others and are being played despite obvious deficiencies and lack of performance - however I cant speak for what the KPI's re or what the expectations are of these players and why they continue to be played.

Which leads me to my second and last criticism of Bolton and his coaching staff- they have tolerated very weak if not pea hearted efforts as far as tackling goes for far too long. In any code of contact football - tackling is a probably the cornerstone of building both defensive capability and attacking foundations - I am very disappointed with the lack of intent shown by too many players as far as executing basic tackles. I also think that Bolton has allowed a couple of senior players to get away with poor tackling performances and non efforts - and this has had a very detrimental effect on developing players.

I hope Bolton sees out his contract as a start of a great coaching career at Carlton - in order to do this he will have to fall out of love with some of the players he has publicly stated he is in love with. the sooner he starts taking tackling seriously as far as KPI's go and actually promotes and demotes players according to this one basic non negotiable, as a start - the better the whole team will start performing.
 
Thrawn said:
Why isn't any attention going to the assistants? Has Barker contributed anything meaningful, for example? I remember people were livid with him at one point or another but suddenly it's all quiet on that front. Is Bolton letting them having a larger say when perhaps he should not, or is it the other way around? Perhaps Bolton needs some help on match-day, I don't think it'd be wise to sack him now because who is going to replace him? Barker again? Someone mentioned Voss, I'm still recovering from my side-splitting laughter. Doesn't anyone actually remember how terrible Voss was as coach?

Make the decision at the end of the year. Who knows, we may win several games in the 2nd half of this season and this talk would be pointless. Although I'm not too sure on Walls mentoring him, he's been out of coaching for decades now and is out of touch with the modern game. Perhaps he's giving Bolton terrible advice? I'm not sure. At either rate, sacking Bolton now is premature and won't really fix our problems.
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I never follow assistant coaches coming and going very closely. But I feel as though we’ve recently changed a few?

If that’s the case then I think it’s fairly easy to see why they’re escaping criticism.
 
I’m glad we won’t have the first pick this year tbh, as much as I’ve loved watching Walsh this year. Too long we’ve been accumulating top draft picks assuming they’ll part-way fix our problems and fast-track our performance.

I want to see us start hitting in all rounds of the draft, and largely this has been a failing of SOS and our overall list management strategy.
 
Should we end 2019 campaign in 18th position and finish with up the Crows 1st rd pick of say between picks 13 to15 instead, Silvagni’s position may be untenable.
Stocker is a quality youngster and should be a good prospect but to forfeit a shot at Anderson or Rowell for Liam and another unknown youngster is visionary just an an unacceptable risk.
 
says who?
bmaurizio said:
Should we end 2019 campaign in 18th position and finish with up the Crows 1st rd pick of say between picks 13 to15 instead, Silvagni’s position may be untenable.
Stocker is a quality youngster and should be a good prospect but to forfeit a shot at Anderson or Rowell for Liam and another unknown youngster is visionary just an an unacceptable risk.
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so it's about punishment? you sack sos because of a progressive draft move you believe hasn't come off? after you punish him, who will you replace him with?
 

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thylacine60 said:
after you punish him, who will you replace him with?
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That's the one question that they'll never (rarely at best) answer with regards to both Bolton and Silvagni. And when they do give that rare answer it's loaded full of question marks. Even the suggestions of Caracella and Rohan Smith have more question marks than answers. Sure, both are highly regarded as assistant coaches but neither has been a head coach. Bolton was regarded as the leading assistant coach in the game when we signed him and he'd actually had a handful of games as coach in Clarkson's absence.

So easy to say that the coach/list manager got to go. However, it appears that AFL coach pathway has been a bit of a disaster to date. Unlike other sports you never really hear of the next guys busting the door down to get a job. The last two were Goodwin and Stewie Dew who are both off the market. Granted, list manager is a harder position to 'know' but what's next, suggesting Terry Wallace?
 
16 wins in 75 games merits questioning. Failure to develop or utilize the talent available to you merits questioning. Failure to implement an identifiable tactical approach merits questioning. When other rebuilding teams go past you like you’re standing still merits questioning.

2 wins last year and a likely similar result this year is not progress.

Many on this board are too one-eyed for critical debate which is why I lurk. Questioning the club’s direction is not being disloyal.

While there may not be an obvious candidate available to replace him, doesn’t mean we should stick with what we have because it isn’t working. The ladder doesn’t lie.
 
Wickzki said:
That's the one question that they'll never (rarely at best) answer with regards to both Bolton and Silvagni. And when they do give that rare answer it's loaded full of question marks. Even the suggestions of Caracella and Rohan Smith have more question marks than answers. Sure, both are highly regarded as assistant coaches but neither has been a head coach. Bolton was regarded as the leading assistant coach in the game when we signed him and he'd actually had a handful of games as coach in Clarkson's absence.

So easy to say that the coach/list manager got to go. However, it appears that AFL coach pathway has been a bit of a disaster to date. Unlike other sports you never really hear of the next guys busting the door down to get a job. The last two were Goodwin and Stewie Dew who are both off the market. Granted, list manager is a harder position to 'know' but what's next, suggesting Terry Wallace?
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There’s always candidates out there. None of us have any idea about the quality of said candidates. We are simply guessing.

Bolton is right there with Mark Neeld in terms of win loss record. I don’t want to sack him currently but this idea that he’s definitely the perfect coach and irreplaceable is bewildering. What has he done so far to suggest that him ending up sacked would be such a travesty? Posters bring up Dimma, Bucks etc. What about the clubs who moved on coaches and then started improving?

Same goes with SOS. I think he’s done plenty of good things recruiting wise. But if he can’t add some experience and depth to this list fast and fill some of the glaring holes then surely he has to be questioned.

Patience can pay off sure. But on the contrary sticking with the wrong people can prove disastrous. Would hate for Cripps and others to suffer similar fates to Murphy, Kreuzer and Simpson in terms of their careers being wasted.
 
A couple of opinions I would like to share -

1 I still think Bolton should coach us next year, we all saw the train wreck that happened to the Dees during the Bailey/Neeld era when they discarded all their decent veterans and just decided to play youth. Recruiting a few more older/bigger bodies to help our under siege kids (especially in the midfield and flanks) should be a recruiting priority.

2 - I am not convinced at all that if we decide to let Bolton go, there are all that great/appealing choices on the open market. I suspect Peter Sumich would be a the best option out of all untried senior AFL coaching options, not sure if he wants to move his family away from WA though.

I do have a small but nasty suspicion about Ross Lyon, especially since it seems he is one of SOS's BFF's (apparently).

To sum up, at this stage I want Bolton to stay for 2020, unless there are definitive signs he has lost the players. Change for the sake of change would be just about the most stupid thing this footy club could do at this crucial time of our rebuild (unless Bolts decides the job is too much and decides to walk away)

Our emotions are running high right now, understandably so, but the footy club and decision makers have to stay strong, wait till the end of the season, and then make a calm, rational and methodical review into all aspects of the football department (not just coaching).

It would be nice if we could get that shrink from the Simpsons who hypnotised Homer's rubbish softball team into world beaters, for our players, alas, life isn't that convenient.
 
If we can find a coach who has access to a time machine, and who can take our list several years into the future, and then return with their experienced future selves in time for the Saints game on Sunday, then imo sign him or her up ASAP, as we might still be in the hunt for finals in season 2019.

Otherwise, unless we are consistently losing by 10 goals or more and/or there’s an open player revolt, then imo we should stay the course with the plan that the club as a whole has committed to, and we shouldn’t even contemplate replacing Bolts until the back end of the 2020 season at the very earliest, assuming that no significant progress is evident by then.
 
The Edukator said:
We've failed numerous times by sacking coaches. The message from the club has always been one of unity and backing the coach. Maybe now is the time to actually roll the dice and stick with him. Give him more time to turn it around before making a premature decision that mirrors our previous mistakes..

It's seriously tough to deal with but we can't do the same old thing and expect different results. That's insanity.
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A bit like his coaching
 
true blue19 said:
We have a history of being inpatient with inexperience coaches and sacking them too early and bring in experience coaches and going backwards.

Brittain to Pagan
Ratten to Malthouse

I really hope we learn from our history and look at what the Tigers and Pies have done. Stick with Bolton and go hard to get him the best assistance coaches going around.
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Changing assistant coaches wont do a thing with a list as brittle and unbalanced as ours in regard to midfield maturity and age profile of the team .
Only thing that will get consistency for this list ATM is to get control of the injury list .
The injuries keep coming and are exposing our failure to add mature bodies especially through the midfield . That is only exacerbated by our coach refusing to use bigger body options through the midfield in Kennedy and Ed Curnow or anything other than predominantly a Cripps Dow Fisher SPS mix .
List management has played a big part in the problem however there are some options but again the coach refuses to use them .

It is ok to go into a little bit of damage control for a period both during games or multiple weeks whilst we wait for best 22 players and key personnel to return .
The baffling Macreadie selection again just highlights the mindset is slanted too far into the future and not enough in the now .
 
I personally think BB gets to see out the year as a minimum.

Hopefully we get some players back, build cohesion in the group & see what the team produces. If none of this happens across the remainder of the year then I think BB needs to be moved on.

The next month we have some winnable games, getting a couple of wins would certainly ease some pressure on all at the club going into the bye.
 
Blue and Blue said:
This one needs locking also. Its an agenda thread nothing more.
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I just cannot see how people do not think a discussion regarding the coach is warranted. One win and a percentage below 80 is so far off what we should be doing.

Either our list build is a complete mess and guys like Curnow are busts, or the coach has lost his way. It is just not acceptable that this side is tracking behind the entire competition by so far.

People can continually make excuses for poor performances but we have seen nothing in the last 2 years that tells us Bolton can be successful.

At some point you have to draw the line, people will argue look at Richmond they stayed the course with Hardwick but reality is he had a number of 15 win seasons and they also improved far quicker. People need to deliver and nobody inside or outside the club would of suggested at the start of the year 1 win and a percantage of mid 70s was anything other than a disaster.

I am really upset with what is occurring. I am dismayed with the constant selection of a top heavy forward line and defence.
 
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sparkyblue said:
16 wins in 75 games merits questioning. Failure to develop or utilize the talent available to you merits questioning. Failure to implement an identifiable tactical approach merits questioning. When other rebuilding teams go past you like you’re standing still merits questioning.

2 wins last year and a likely similar result this year is not progress.

Many on this board are too one-eyed for critical debate which is why I lurk. Questioning the club’s direction is not being disloyal.

While there may not be an obvious candidate available to replace him, doesn’t mean we should stick with what we have because it isn’t working. The ladder doesn’t lie.
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Holding people to account for out put is critical, blind loyalty is what every under performing leader calls for.
 
Percy2257 said:
Ok. Let me try a different approach.
Let’s retrain the coach. Let’s stop him looking like an earnest school teacher staring at headlights on a parent teacher night when the parents challenge him.
He worked under Clarkson, yet he shows no signs of having done so. None.
Maybe that’s because unlike all of other Clarkson’s apprentices, Bolton never played at the top level.
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Like Chris Fagan?
 
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