Coaching Staff Brendon Bolton - Senior Coach - Locked in until end of 2020 (23/5/18)

[thylacine60]

Way too many personal attacks and playing the man are creeping into posts.



https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/thre...ead-bans-in-force-please-read-post-11.313052/



Just a reminder - ZERO TOLERANCE and that applies across all threads .......


https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/thre...orce-please-read-post-11.313052/post-57208998

you're just feeling guilty for leaving me and cookie monster in charge of things last night........

 

[thylacine60]

How about thread bans for posters calling for “taking names”? What is this the freaking Gestapo? Jesus.

who did that? I love it!

 

[Aphrodite]

How about thread bans for posters calling for “taking names”? What is this the freaking Gestapo? Jesus.

Say what!

 

[Aphrodite]

you're just feeling guilty for leaving me and cookie monster in charge of things last night........

I was too busy.

 

[thylacine60]

gosh.....

 

[Beast__Mode]

who did that? I love it!

Shan. I love his work but this board does enjoy a pile on if someone questions anything happening at the club.

 

[thylacine60]

no it doesn't - posters who like to whinge and criticise just don't like it that there are more around that prefer to support and look for positives.........

 

[Soapy V]

Say what!

[emoji15]

 

[Soapy V]

no it doesn't - posters who like to whinge and criticise just don't like it that there are more around that prefer to support and look for positives.........

Best summation so far but I think I’m missing it all now. Block button working overtime and it’s great [emoji106]

 

[teagueyubeauty]

Any way you sad sacks I’m having some gorgeous friends over for lunch, ciao

See you soon...

 

[thylacine60]

Any way you sad sacks I’m having some gorgeous friends over for lunch, ciao

sorry I couldn't make it - you know the rest....

 

[thylacine60]

There are also people that like to lie and infer that they know what everyone on our playing list thinks, says, eats, etc.

that's the clique - they cannot be under-valued for their tireless work here........

 

[Beast__Mode]

no it doesn't - posters who like to whinge and criticise just don't like it that there are more around that prefer to support and look for positives.........

I think people can criticise aspects of the club and still support it and look for positives. It’s not so binary.

Anyway, I’m sure anyone who truly supports the club is hoping Bolts leads the team to success. I certainly do I’ve stated my perception of him.

 

[chunkylover53]

Sorry in advance for the long summary. Would be great if you can give it a read if you can be bothered and share your thoughts and feedback (in a civil manner).

It is completely fair enough for supporters to be questioning if Bolton is the right man, and if they're doing so, they shouldn't be spoken to in a condescending manner and named trolls. It's a frustrating time for fans - a lot have gone from patient, to antsy to flat out angry. After all, we are dealing with a coach who has just gone 3 wins from almost 40 games and has started the season at 0-3 with every chance to be 1-9 on current form. Do I think questions need to be asked? Yes. Do I think we should sack him? No. But the clock is ticking.

Have we improved?

I keep hearing how much we have improved this year but I'm not sure I'm buying it. Round 3 last year we pushed Collingwood in a Friday night game in a similar manner to our game on the weekend vs Sydney, however falling short by 4 goals. But chunky - we have turned over the list so much this year, our kids are rapidly improving and blind freddy can see that! We just need some more cohesion and time playing together. Ok cool, using this round last year as an example, we had 6 different players playing (Kreuzer, Lamb, Mullet, Mullet, Wright & Kennedy) - the rest of the squad is exactly the same - sounds pretty normal to me. Why can Port start the year with four 18 year olds and some recruits and start well? From Geelong's finals loss last year, their squad Thursday night included 7 new faces and they are sitting on top. Sure they have great leadership in Selwood and Danger but they are almost on another planet to us right now in terms of performance. Our lists aren't that far apart in talent - trust me.

Okay this week is an outlier, we still look much better playing a more attacking game style! Do we? We pushed Richmond in Rd 1 last year kicking 15.5, had a dog day vs GC the next week yet still kicked 9.13, and as I mentioned pushed Collingwood kicking 11.10. Vs so far this year kicking 9.10, 11.6 and 10.14. 'Oh look another one obsessed with kicking 100 points' - I'm simply debunking the myth that we look more attacking. All losing margins are pretty similar too. Not saying we have gone backwards, but it looks pretty much the same despite our youngsters who seem to continue to develop, SOS did a brilliant job improving our list in the off season and again despite this, no i do not think we have improved.

Expectations

But Chunky, this period was always going to be tough, we have turned over so many players, we all knew that, the club knew that, we have finally got the group we want together, we just need some more time. Hmm nah sorry I'm not buying that. As I have alluded to earlier, this is Bolton's 4th year at the helm and plenty of other clubs turn over players too and don't seem to have a problem with cohesion and synergy. They get on with it and win games - that's what pre-season is for. You bond, learn a game plan (footy is a simple game, you'd be surprised at the simplicity of the messages and game plans some teams go by), yet here we are staring at a very real possibility at another wooden spoon and using cohesion as an excuse. And no, the club didn't expect to be 0-3, anyone can see that. We traded our first pick this year and when asked about Adelaide being predicted to finish ahead of us to SOS, he bluntly replied with 'thats heresay, what if we finish above Adelaide?' (bloody love SOS). The president has said over the off-season too we are expecting huge improvement. Bolton is visibly agitated in his press conferences, make no mistake this is not 'part of the plan' or expected to be a tough period. With the on boarding of Andrew Russell, the injection of some more serious young talent and the retention of our older heads, we anticipated we'd hit the ground running.

Talent

Chunky, look at our middle tier players, they are no good! The young brigade get no support from this group of older heads, especially the midfield. Really? Marc Murphy has his moments but let me tell you he is no bloody schmuck, neither is Dale Thomas (you'll struggle to find a cleaner player in the league). Kade Simpson? Probably plays the easiest position on the ground and despite drop in form this year has been adequate, Liam Jones is a dead set star right now and if I were a young backman I'd love to have him zoning off his man to chop me out with mine. Ed Curnow - meh, Ed is Ed, is serviceable but can struggle with ball in hand. Yes but what about midfield support?! Oh we only have a 195cm beast on his way to becoming one of the best players we have seen in the Navy Blue, not only that but an incredible leader. Our mid-career talent dearth has been almost eradicated, by, once again our very clever list manager Silvagni. We definitely lack maybe one 25-29 yr old star (Shiel would've been great), but it's not a bad group. In fact I'd almost say we have the perfect balance of old and young with real potential to upset teams and cause headaches, it should be an exciting time for us, instead we continue to struggle.

Scoring

Who cares about kicking 100 and losing when you can kick 80 and win!?!? Unfortunately, we can't do either. We lack small forwards for sure. Polson and Gibbons are midfielders and long-term they will be used as ones but unfortunately we've bottled this in the off-season. Who's to blame for this? SOS or Bolts? I'm going with the latter, Bolts has specific needs for the style he wants to play, communicates that with SOS who identifies and recruits accordingly with his team. With the 6-6-6 coming in why did we not see the value in finding a small forward? I don't buy the excuse of the rule change coming in after the off-season, we all knew it'd come in. Did Bolts think he could turn Polson into a small forward and then pounce on Gibbons late because he thought he could do the same with him and needed another one because of the rule changes? Poor planning if so. Small forward aside, let's look at our 3 KPF. They are absolute ******* guns. If you put Curnow in Hawthorn's 08 team (Buddy 100 year @ same age as Curnow), he would've achieved similar (okay maybe not 100 but a lot of goals), McKay is breaking records already and McGovern is just a dead set game breaker. Sorry guys but cohesion and learning to play together shouldn't be an excuse for still not being able to score. When does it end? What if we get 2x small forwards next year and we still can't score and we are using list turnover as an excuse again?

Injuries

Meh, part of the game. Getting tired of seeing posts about it. Tough sport, shit happens, Doc hurts, we seem to bring Williamson into it a lot but really he hasn't played since his first year when he had a great first year. Has battled all sorts of injuries and it's very unlikely he'll be the same player. Breaks my heart but I fear the same for Doc. Our injury list is no worse than anyone else at the moment.

So what's wrong?

Righto Chunky according to you we have a list stacked with talent, a great list manager, a steady group of older players, a relatively healthy list, a future brownlow medallist and a group of kids developing as you'd expect - so why aren't we winning?

Truth is I haven't figured that out yet but I'm going to bring 2 things into the picture, the 2 most cliche things in footy - game plan & culture.

Game Plan

I have no idea what our game plan is - if you watch footy regularly you'll see a certain identity with teams and how they want to play. We have none. Bolts has said we want to be judged and identified on pressure but we've never been a high pressure team. We're not particularly attacking but not overly defensive either - it's all very strange. Players often look confused, we seem to be the only team in the league still going long down the line (it literally never works). We seem to take the corridor but only after coming in off the angle out of defensive 50 - there is absolutely nothing wrong directly hitting the middle and making a team pay on a turnover. Whacking it on the boot to get it forward seems to be literally a part of our plan right now which is ****ing bizarre. I'm assuming it's because we want to get it in as quick as possible and apply crazy pressure to lock it in our forward 50 but again, we have never been a manic pressure team. It was posted somewhere that after a review end of year it was found Boltons game plan was far too complex and they've stripped it right down. I don't see any difference.

Culture (Kulttcchhaaaa)

Make no mistake this is very real in a footy club. I have no doubt we are building a great environment for kids to grow and our players to become mates for life, but are we instilling that cliche thing we call a winning culture? I see no evidence - each week we keep losing we are doing another week of damage. It was the same last year but we don't know how to win, we are mentally shot, when we get close we go into our shells, kick long down the line, miss easy set shots, but in the end it's honorable and we are on the right track. Where does this mindset of not winning stem from? Is it from the coach continuously publicly stating they're not to be judged on wins and losses, as well as blaming injuries at times last year? Probably - I mean there is a ****ing ladder updated every week, has he chosen to not look at the ladder because that's irrelevant to us? AFL and sport as a while is a results based industry. Telling naturally competitive (you don't get drafted if you aren't competitive), hungry kids that it's okay to lose as long as you try in an industry like this is toxic - it sets them up for failure. I'm not saying he needs to go full Malthouse on the players and publicly spray them and demand all-out perfection but he has very clearly prioritised things like environment over actually trying to win. The key to a good environment within a footy club with good characters (which I'm sure we have) is winning. There is such thing as a toxic winning culture (see WCE 06) but we don't have dickheads who will go down that path. My concern is we have lost so many games now that the players can't remember what it's like to win, think they're not expected to win and flat out don't know how to win.

What about Bolts?

Yeah that's right Chunky typical feral 'supporter' throw the baby out with the bathwater sakc another coach you troll.

Again, truth is I'm not really sure. Coaching is such a diplomatic operation in the modern day (12 assistants + Robert Walls) so it's hard to determine how much influence each has. For all we know Bolton could be listening to his assistants too much and they are no good.

Unless something disastrous happens and we don't win a game this year then we can't keep him on. However reality is we will pinch 2 to 4 and let him see out his contract (2020). So no, we don't sack him, we made a contract and we owe it to him and ourselves to see it out. Is he our man long term? Based on history and what I've seen, probably not. 3 wins out of 38 games is a dead set deplorable record, no matter the turnover. Stuey Dew is currently sitting with a better record. I honestly can't see him steering us to a powerhouse, just can't.

But Richmond stuck with Hardwick, Collingwood with Buckley and Geelong with Thompson, look where they are now! None of them were ever coaching as many losses as Bolton. Hardwick had a shocker first year but improved from there, the other 2 were just underwhelming, never as consistently bad as we have been. Bolton should probably be compared with Neeld and McCartney, two coaches taking over basket cases with young lists.

Prediction?

We will finish 17th or 18th this year, and probably 15th or so next year and our hands will be tied. It will be an amicable divorce and we will say thanks for your services. Every wannabe coach in the industry will be licking their lips at the chance to have a crack with this list. I should mention this isn't my preference but merely my prediction - I want Bolts to succeed and for him to salute #17.

 

[thylacine60]

whenever bolts does finish up and regardless of the circumstances I doubt many will actually appreciate what he will have done for the carlton footy club.....

 

[cookie monster]

Sorry in advance for the long summary. Would be great if you can give it a read if you can be bothered and share your thoughts and feedback (in a civil manner).

It is completely fair enough for supporters to be questioning if Bolton is the right man, and if they're doing so, they shouldn't be spoken to in a condescending manner and named trolls. It's a frustrating time for fans - a lot have gone from patient, to antsy to flat out angry. After all, we are dealing with a coach who has just gone 3 wins from almost 40 games and has started the season at 0-3 with every chance to be 1-9 on current form. Do I think questions need to be asked? Yes. Do I think we should sack him? No. But the clock is ticking.

Have we improved?

I keep hearing how much we have improved this year but I'm not sure I'm buying it. Round 3 last year we pushed Collingwood in a Friday night game in a similar manner to our game on the weekend vs Sydney, however falling short by 4 goals. But chunky - we have turned over the list so much this year, our kids are rapidly improving and blind freddy can see that! We just need some more cohesion and time playing together. Ok cool, using this round last year as an example, we had 6 different players playing (Kreuzer, Lamb, Mullet, Mullet, Wright & Kennedy) - the rest of the squad is exactly the same - sounds pretty normal to me. Why can Port start the year with four 18 year olds and some recruits and start well? From Geelong's finals loss last year, their squad Thursday night included 7 new faces and they are sitting on top. Sure they have great leadership in Selwood and Danger but they are almost on another planet to us right now in terms of performance. Our lists aren't that far apart in talent - trust me.

Okay this week is an outlier, we still look much better playing a more attacking game style! Do we? We pushed Richmond in Rd 1 last year kicking 15.5, had a dog day vs GC the next week yet still kicked 9.13, and as I mentioned pushed Collingwood kicking 11.10. Vs so far this year kicking 9.10, 11.6 and 10.14. 'Oh look another one obsessed with kicking 100 points' - I'm simply debunking the myth that we look more attacking. All losing margins are pretty similar too. Not saying we have gone backwards, but it looks pretty much the same despite our youngsters who seem to continue to develop, SOS did a brilliant job improving our list in the off season and again despite this, no i do not think we have improved.

Expectations

But Chunky, this period was always going to be tough, we have turned over so many players, we all knew that, the club knew that, we have finally got the group we want together, we just need some more time. Hmm nah sorry I'm not buying that. As I have alluded to earlier, this is Bolton's 4th year at the helm and plenty of other clubs turn over players too and don't seem to have a problem with cohesion and synergy. They get on with it and win games - that's what pre-season is for. You bond, learn a game plan (footy is a simple game, you'd be surprised at the simplicity of the messages and game plans some teams go by), yet here we are staring at a very real possibility at another wooden spoon and using cohesion as an excuse. And no, the club didn't expect to be 0-3, anyone can see that. We traded our first pick this year and when asked about Adelaide being predicted to finish ahead of us to SOS, he bluntly replied with 'thats heresay, what if we finish above Adelaide?' (bloody love SOS). The president has said over the off-season too we are expecting huge improvement. Bolton is visibly agitated in his press conferences, make no mistake this is not 'part of the plan' or expected to be a tough period. With the on boarding of Andrew Russell, the injection of some more serious young talent and the retention of our older heads, we anticipated we'd hit the ground running.

Talent

Chunky, look at our middle tier players, they are no good! The young brigade get no support from this group of older heads, especially the midfield. Really? Marc Murphy has his moments but let me tell you he is no bloody schmuck, neither is Dale Thomas (you'll struggle to find a cleaner player in the league). Kade Simpson? Probably plays the easiest position on the ground and despite drop in form this year has been adequate, Liam Jones is a dead set star right now and if I were a young backman I'd love to have him zoning off his man to chop me out with mine. Ed Curnow - meh, Ed is Ed, is serviceable but can struggle with ball in hand. Yes but what about midfield support?! Oh we only have a 195cm beast on his way to becoming one of the best players we have seen in the Navy Blue, not only that but an incredible leader. Our mid-career talent dearth has been almost eradicated, by, once again our very clever list manager Silvagni. We definitely lack maybe one 25-29 yr old star (Shiel would've been great), but it's not a bad group. In fact I'd almost say we have the perfect balance of old and young with real potential to upset teams and cause headaches, it should be an exciting time for us, instead we continue to struggle.

Scoring

Who cares about kicking 100 and losing when you can kick 80 and win!?!? Unfortunately, we can't do either. We lack small forwards for sure. Polson and Gibbons are midfielders and long-term they will be used as ones but unfortunately we've bottled this in the off-season. Who's to blame for this? SOS or Bolts? I'm going with the latter, Bolts has specific needs for the style he wants to play, communicates that with SOS who identifies and recruits accordingly with his team. With the 6-6-6 coming in why did we not see the value in finding a small forward? I don't buy the excuse of the rule change coming in after the off-season, we all knew it'd come in. Did Bolts think he could turn Polson into a small forward and then pounce on Gibbons late because he thought he could do the same with him and needed another one because of the rule changes? Poor planning if so. Small forward aside, let's look at our 3 KPF. They are absolute ******* guns. If you put Curnow in Hawthorn's 08 team (Buddy 100 year @ same age as Curnow), he would've achieved similar (okay maybe not 100 but a lot of goals), McKay is breaking records already and McGovern is just a dead set game breaker. Sorry guys but cohesion and learning to play together shouldn't be an excuse for still not being able to score. When does it end? What if we get 2x small forwards next year and we still can't score and we are using list turnover as an excuse again?

Injuries

Meh, part of the game. Getting tired of seeing posts about it. Tough sport, shit happens, Doc hurts, we seem to bring Williamson into it a lot but really he hasn't played since his first year when he had a great first year. Has battled all sorts of injuries and it's very unlikely he'll be the same player. Breaks my heart but I fear the same for Doc. Our injury list is no worse than anyone else at the moment.

So what's wrong?

Righto Chunky according to you we have a list stacked with talent, a great list manager, a steady group of older players, a relatively healthy list, a future brownlow medallist and a group of kids developing as you'd expect - so why aren't we winning?

Truth is I haven't figured that out yet but I'm going to bring 2 things into the picture, the 2 most cliche things in footy - game plan & culture.

Game Plan

I have no idea what our game plan is - if you watch footy regularly you'll see a certain identity with teams and how they want to play. We have none. Bolts has said we want to be judged and identified on pressure but we've never been a high pressure team. We're not particularly attacking but not overly defensive either - it's all very strange. Players often look confused, we seem to be the only team in the league still going long down the line (it literally never works). We seem to take the corridor but only after coming in off the angle out of defensive 50 - there is absolutely nothing wrong directly hitting the middle and making a team pay on a turnover. Whacking it on the boot to get it forward seems to be literally a part of our plan right now which is ******* bizarre. I'm assuming it's because we want to get it in as quick as possible and apply crazy pressure to lock it in our forward 50 but again, we have never been a manic pressure team. It was posted somewhere that after a review end of year it was found Boltons game plan was far too complex and they've stripped it right down. I don't see any difference.

Culture (Kulttcchhaaaa)

Make no mistake this is very real in a footy club. I have no doubt we are building a great environment for kids to grow and our players to become mates for life, but are we instilling that cliche thing we call a winning culture? I see no evidence - each week we keep losing we are doing another week of damage. It was the same last year but we don't know how to win, we are mentally shot, when we get close we go into our shells, kick long down the line, miss easy set shots, but in the end it's honorable and we are on the right track. Where does this mindset of not winning stem from? Is it from the coach continuously publicly stating they're not to be judged on wins and losses, as well as blaming injuries at times last year? Probably - I mean there is a ******* ladder updated every week, has he chosen to not look at the ladder because that's irrelevant to us? AFL and sport as a while is a results based industry. Telling naturally competitive (you don't get drafted if you aren't competitive), hungry kids that it's okay to lose as long as you try in an industry like this is toxic - it sets them up for failure. I'm not saying he needs to go full Malthouse on the players and publicly spray them and demand all-out perfection but he has very clearly prioritised things like environment over actually trying to win. The key to a good environment within a footy club with good characters (which I'm sure we have) is winning. There is such thing as a toxic winning culture (see WCE 06) but we don't have dickheads who will go down that path. My concern is we have lost so many games now that the players can't remember what it's like to win, think they're not expected to win and flat out don't know how to win.

What about Bolts?

Yeah that's right Chunky typical feral 'supporter' throw the baby out with the bathwater sakc another coach you troll.

Again, truth is I'm not really sure. Coaching is such a diplomatic operation in the modern day (12 assistants + Robert Walls) so it's hard to determine how much influence each has. For all we know Bolton could be listening to his assistants too much and they are no good.

Unless something disastrous happens and we don't win a game this year then we can't keep him on. However reality is we will pinch 2 to 4 and let him see out his contract (2020). So no, we don't sack him, we made a contract and we owe it to him and ourselves to see it out. Is he our man long term? Based on history and what I've seen, probably not. 3 wins out of 38 games is a dead set deplorable record, no matter the turnover. Stuey Dew is currently sitting with a better record. I honestly can't see him steering us to a powerhouse, just can't.

But Richmond stuck with Hardwick, Collingwood with Buckley and Geelong with Thompson, look where they are now! None of them were ever coaching as many losses as Bolton. Hardwick had a shocker first year but improved from there, the other 2 were just underwhelming, never as consistently bad as we have been. Bolton should probably be compared with Neeld and McCartney, two coaches taking over basket cases with young lists.

Prediction?

We will finish 17th or 18th this year, and probably 15th or so next year and our hands will be tied. It will be an amicable divorce and we will say thanks for your services. Every wannabe coach in the industry will be licking their lips at the chance to have a crack with this list. I should mention this isn't my preference but merely my prediction - I want Bolts to succeed and for him to salute #17.

Troll post, shit stirrer account, delete

 

[Osc1]

whenever bolts does finish up and regardless of the circumstances I doubt many will actually appreciate what he will have done for the carlton footy club.....

Very true. Still, if I was a betting man, the post above yours is the probable outcome.

 

[thylacine60]

quit betting then.......

 

[Soapy V]

whenever bolts does finish up and regardless of the circumstances I doubt many will actually appreciate what he will have done for the carlton footy club.....

100%

I remember similar criticisms of Hardwick Buckley even Clarkson early on.

Be interesting if we ever got the chance to sit in on a coaches meeting one day. I reckon we might all walk away thinking that actually makes sense and I understand what we are doing. Just because we don’t understand doesn’t make it wrong

 

[VainGlorious]

whenever bolts does finish up and regardless of the circumstances I doubt many will actually appreciate what he will have done for the carlton footy club.....

I’m tipping Bolts will be coaching for longer than people think. I hope he is. I know it won’t happen as it would be untenable but I wish Ratts was a senior assistant at Carlton.

There I said it.

 

[Blue and Blue]

Sorry in advance for the long summary. Would be great if you can give it a read if you can be bothered and share your thoughts and feedback (in a civil manner).

It is completely fair enough for supporters to be questioning if Bolton is the right man, and if they're doing so, they shouldn't be spoken to in a condescending manner and named trolls. It's a frustrating time for fans - a lot have gone from patient, to antsy to flat out angry. After all, we are dealing with a coach who has just gone 3 wins from almost 40 games and has started the season at 0-3 with every chance to be 1-9 on current form. Do I think questions need to be asked? Yes. Do I think we should sack him? No. But the clock is ticking.

Have we improved?

I keep hearing how much we have improved this year but I'm not sure I'm buying it. Round 3 last year we pushed Collingwood in a Friday night game in a similar manner to our game on the weekend vs Sydney, however falling short by 4 goals. But chunky - we have turned over the list so much this year, our kids are rapidly improving and blind freddy can see that! We just need some more cohesion and time playing together. Ok cool, using this round last year as an example, we had 6 different players playing (Kreuzer, Lamb, Mullet, Mullet, Wright & Kennedy) - the rest of the squad is exactly the same - sounds pretty normal to me. Why can Port start the year with four 18 year olds and some recruits and start well? From Geelong's finals loss last year, their squad Thursday night included 7 new faces and they are sitting on top. Sure they have great leadership in Selwood and Danger but they are almost on another planet to us right now in terms of performance. Our lists aren't that far apart in talent - trust me.

Okay this week is an outlier, we still look much better playing a more attacking game style! Do we? We pushed Richmond in Rd 1 last year kicking 15.5, had a dog day vs GC the next week yet still kicked 9.13, and as I mentioned pushed Collingwood kicking 11.10. Vs so far this year kicking 9.10, 11.6 and 10.14. 'Oh look another one obsessed with kicking 100 points' - I'm simply debunking the myth that we look more attacking. All losing margins are pretty similar too. Not saying we have gone backwards, but it looks pretty much the same despite our youngsters who seem to continue to develop, SOS did a brilliant job improving our list in the off season and again despite this, no i do not think we have improved.

Expectations

But Chunky, this period was always going to be tough, we have turned over so many players, we all knew that, the club knew that, we have finally got the group we want together, we just need some more time. Hmm nah sorry I'm not buying that. As I have alluded to earlier, this is Bolton's 4th year at the helm and plenty of other clubs turn over players too and don't seem to have a problem with cohesion and synergy. They get on with it and win games - that's what pre-season is for. You bond, learn a game plan (footy is a simple game, you'd be surprised at the simplicity of the messages and game plans some teams go by), yet here we are staring at a very real possibility at another wooden spoon and using cohesion as an excuse. And no, the club didn't expect to be 0-3, anyone can see that. We traded our first pick this year and when asked about Adelaide being predicted to finish ahead of us to SOS, he bluntly replied with 'thats heresay, what if we finish above Adelaide?' (bloody love SOS). The president has said over the off-season too we are expecting huge improvement. Bolton is visibly agitated in his press conferences, make no mistake this is not 'part of the plan' or expected to be a tough period. With the on boarding of Andrew Russell, the injection of some more serious young talent and the retention of our older heads, we anticipated we'd hit the ground running.

Talent

Chunky, look at our middle tier players, they are no good! The young brigade get no support from this group of older heads, especially the midfield. Really? Marc Murphy has his moments but let me tell you he is no bloody schmuck, neither is Dale Thomas (you'll struggle to find a cleaner player in the league). Kade Simpson? Probably plays the easiest position on the ground and despite drop in form this year has been adequate, Liam Jones is a dead set star right now and if I were a young backman I'd love to have him zoning off his man to chop me out with mine. Ed Curnow - meh, Ed is Ed, is serviceable but can struggle with ball in hand. Yes but what about midfield support?! Oh we only have a 195cm beast on his way to becoming one of the best players we have seen in the Navy Blue, not only that but an incredible leader. Our mid-career talent dearth has been almost eradicated, by, once again our very clever list manager Silvagni. We definitely lack maybe one 25-29 yr old star (Shiel would've been great), but it's not a bad group. In fact I'd almost say we have the perfect balance of old and young with real potential to upset teams and cause headaches, it should be an exciting time for us, instead we continue to struggle.

Scoring

Who cares about kicking 100 and losing when you can kick 80 and win!?!? Unfortunately, we can't do either. We lack small forwards for sure. Polson and Gibbons are midfielders and long-term they will be used as ones but unfortunately we've bottled this in the off-season. Who's to blame for this? SOS or Bolts? I'm going with the latter, Bolts has specific needs for the style he wants to play, communicates that with SOS who identifies and recruits accordingly with his team. With the 6-6-6 coming in why did we not see the value in finding a small forward? I don't buy the excuse of the rule change coming in after the off-season, we all knew it'd come in. Did Bolts think he could turn Polson into a small forward and then pounce on Gibbons late because he thought he could do the same with him and needed another one because of the rule changes? Poor planning if so. Small forward aside, let's look at our 3 KPF. They are absolute ******* guns. If you put Curnow in Hawthorn's 08 team (Buddy 100 year @ same age as Curnow), he would've achieved similar (okay maybe not 100 but a lot of goals), McKay is breaking records already and McGovern is just a dead set game breaker. Sorry guys but cohesion and learning to play together shouldn't be an excuse for still not being able to score. When does it end? What if we get 2x small forwards next year and we still can't score and we are using list turnover as an excuse again?

Injuries

Meh, part of the game. Getting tired of seeing posts about it. Tough sport, shit happens, Doc hurts, we seem to bring Williamson into it a lot but really he hasn't played since his first year when he had a great first year. Has battled all sorts of injuries and it's very unlikely he'll be the same player. Breaks my heart but I fear the same for Doc. Our injury list is no worse than anyone else at the moment.

So what's wrong?

Righto Chunky according to you we have a list stacked with talent, a great list manager, a steady group of older players, a relatively healthy list, a future brownlow medallist and a group of kids developing as you'd expect - so why aren't we winning?

Truth is I haven't figured that out yet but I'm going to bring 2 things into the picture, the 2 most cliche things in footy - game plan & culture.

Game Plan

I have no idea what our game plan is - if you watch footy regularly you'll see a certain identity with teams and how they want to play. We have none. Bolts has said we want to be judged and identified on pressure but we've never been a high pressure team. We're not particularly attacking but not overly defensive either - it's all very strange. Players often look confused, we seem to be the only team in the league still going long down the line (it literally never works). We seem to take the corridor but only after coming in off the angle out of defensive 50 - there is absolutely nothing wrong directly hitting the middle and making a team pay on a turnover. Whacking it on the boot to get it forward seems to be literally a part of our plan right now which is ******* bizarre. I'm assuming it's because we want to get it in as quick as possible and apply crazy pressure to lock it in our forward 50 but again, we have never been a manic pressure team. It was posted somewhere that after a review end of year it was found Boltons game plan was far too complex and they've stripped it right down. I don't see any difference.

Culture (Kulttcchhaaaa)

Make no mistake this is very real in a footy club. I have no doubt we are building a great environment for kids to grow and our players to become mates for life, but are we instilling that cliche thing we call a winning culture? I see no evidence - each week we keep losing we are doing another week of damage. It was the same last year but we don't know how to win, we are mentally shot, when we get close we go into our shells, kick long down the line, miss easy set shots, but in the end it's honorable and we are on the right track. Where does this mindset of not winning stem from? Is it from the coach continuously publicly stating they're not to be judged on wins and losses, as well as blaming injuries at times last year? Probably - I mean there is a ******* ladder updated every week, has he chosen to not look at the ladder because that's irrelevant to us? AFL and sport as a while is a results based industry. Telling naturally competitive (you don't get drafted if you aren't competitive), hungry kids that it's okay to lose as long as you try in an industry like this is toxic - it sets them up for failure. I'm not saying he needs to go full Malthouse on the players and publicly spray them and demand all-out perfection but he has very clearly prioritised things like environment over actually trying to win. The key to a good environment within a footy club with good characters (which I'm sure we have) is winning. There is such thing as a toxic winning culture (see WCE 06) but we don't have dickheads who will go down that path. My concern is we have lost so many games now that the players can't remember what it's like to win, think they're not expected to win and flat out don't know how to win.

What about Bolts?

Yeah that's right Chunky typical feral 'supporter' throw the baby out with the bathwater sakc another coach you troll.

Again, truth is I'm not really sure. Coaching is such a diplomatic operation in the modern day (12 assistants + Robert Walls) so it's hard to determine how much influence each has. For all we know Bolton could be listening to his assistants too much and they are no good.

Unless something disastrous happens and we don't win a game this year then we can't keep him on. However reality is we will pinch 2 to 4 and let him see out his contract (2020). So no, we don't sack him, we made a contract and we owe it to him and ourselves to see it out. Is he our man long term? Based on history and what I've seen, probably not. 3 wins out of 38 games is a dead set deplorable record, no matter the turnover. Stuey Dew is currently sitting with a better record. I honestly can't see him steering us to a powerhouse, just can't.

But Richmond stuck with Hardwick, Collingwood with Buckley and Geelong with Thompson, look where they are now! None of them were ever coaching as many losses as Bolton. Hardwick had a shocker first year but improved from there, the other 2 were just underwhelming, never as consistently bad as we have been. Bolton should probably be compared with Neeld and McCartney, two coaches taking over basket cases with young lists.

Prediction?

We will finish 17th or 18th this year, and probably 15th or so next year and our hands will be tied. It will be an amicable divorce and we will say thanks for your services. Every wannabe coach in the industry will be licking their lips at the chance to have a crack with this list. I should mention this isn't my preference but merely my prediction - I want Bolts to succeed and for him to salute #17.

I have no problem with people asking questions.
I dont see anyone labelled a troll for doing so although I have seen that terminology labelled at those who only talk about negatives. Thats understandable.
The one thing I have yet to see from the sack the coach faction is a genuine replacement name. I mean a serious one that we can all go hmmmmmmm you know what, maybe.....
For that reason I say that complaining about the coach in the here and now is really an it's not fair we are losing mantra rather than genuine grievance about Bolton.

 

[chunkylover53]

whenever bolts does finish up and regardless of the circumstances I doubt many will actually appreciate what he will have done for the carlton footy club.....

All you need to do is watch a few eps of the Journey to see what a great influence he is on these kids lives. "Get up off your ass and help your family at Christmas" was a ripper.

 

[carlton2dabone]

The problem isn’t our young kids or our list, I think our players are good enough to be playing much better than what they are, so I place no blame on the young ones at all. The older players deserve much more criticism though, and we continually seem to give them a pass.
Players who have over 200 games under the belt shouldn’t be making the same mistakes or worse than kids with 10 games under the belt, but so many supporters always come to their defence as though the are beyond criticism. We keep saying the kids need experience but then we see our experienced players commuting the same kind of blunders and you ask why that is.

The buck stops with the coach.
I firmly believe that if the coach gives the players a good enough game plan that tests them and helps them grow week by week then we’d have won a bunch more games by now.

With our current game plan of kick it long down the line to a pack, it lets our players off the hook.
No wonder our players decision making and skills are abysmal when the game plan continually robs them of the opportunity to make better decisions or improve their skills, it’s so easy to just slam it on the boot 50m down the line without caring where it ends up.

We bang on about needing patience until the current crop of kids develops composure, yet our game plan actually encourages less decision making and less skill requirements, so how will they improve these things if they are encouraged through game plan not to use them as much.

 

[Michael Jezz]

whenever bolts does finish up and regardless of the circumstances I doubt many will actually appreciate what he will have done for the carlton footy club.....

Yes we will. It is an absolute grind building a list and coaching kids from ground zero with few senior players. It has not been done in the Afl era purely via the draft. Brisbane did it 20 years ago with huge concessions

 

[TerryWallet]

Good post Chunky. A fair bit i agree with but a fair bit i disagree with. But a well reasoned post.

I guess the difference between 2 opinions(yours and mine) is simply that you seem to have expected a bit more this year than me, and hence you are more disappointed than me, and hence you are now more pessimistic on our future than me.

Imo, we are not yet equipped to win these games taking everything into consideration. ATM the players are frustrating the coaches and the coaches are frustrating the players.

We are simply not ready yet to win AFL matches. But we are not far away. We didn't pursue Rockliff & Shiel so hard for no reason. We needed extra senior coverage badly last year and this year. But not so much from next year.

I'm realistic that we are not ready to win yet, but optimistic/nearly sure that we are only 12 months away from consistently winning more AFL matches each year onwards.

No player or coach is untouchable but stability will be a pillar of the next decade imo. The joint is now in good shape. Just a touch more of the dreaded patience is required. Imo, we are tracking very well overall.