Opinion The 'Carlton related stuff that doesn't need it's own thread' thread

[Jabba73]

Me too as well.

 

[BLUEALLTHRU]

I disagree then...

Valid for 2 mins

 

[BlueGum]

+7

 

[Jabba73]

From day one, i was one of Bolts's biggest supporters. I just reckon his blind ambition of player development being more important than getting the win was his undoing. Loyal supporters after enduring basically twenty years of hardship needed something positive. Not just green shoots.

Reckon loyal supporters understood exactly what was going on and were backing in the process and the guys driving it.

Vested interests and supporters who thought they were owed something for their ‘investment’ in the club led to Bolts being dismissed.

Patience has never been a hallmark of the Carlton faithful. When Teague is able to build on the very strong foundations laid by the unselfish direction Bolton took the club, the same people calling for Bolton to be sacked will point to the ensuing success as proof they were right to change coaches and conveniently ignore one could not happen without the other ... and Bolton may well have got there anyway.

 

[TwiggleyFanClub]

Bolts just wasn't sure when to flick the switch from coaching for the future to coaching for the now. He probably could have saved his job if he had coached for the now from Round 1, but he continued to put the long term best interests of the club ahead of his own tenure. I will always view his time at our club as a positive, as frustrating as some of the losses were over the journey.

I just think he needed to release the shackles a little at times.
Coaching for the future was definitely needed, but if they all burn out on the way you'll never get there either.

 

[Shambolic]

I was a big Bolton fan. He came to my workplace and delivered a great presentation; I warmed to his approach. I talked to him after (as I was brought up near where he was brought up, and our Dads apparently knew of each other) and liked him as a man.

Then Essendon 2019 happened and i saw a team lost. they did not want to take anything on and their structures collapsed. It was one of those 41 point losses that felt like 100.

So I switched. Maybe he got his timing wrong. Maybe he didnt tweak fast enough. maybe he'll be given another chance and star.

But we had to make a call after that woeful performance and I'm glad with the new direction.

 

[mediumsizered]

I just think he needed to release the shackles a little at times.
Coaching for the future was definitely needed, but if they all burn out on the way you'll never get there either.

This was probably where his inexperience kicked in. Perhaps if Craig was still at his side he might have been better able to determine when to release the shackles & when to stick with his plan.

 

[Sweet Seventeen]

Reckon loyal supporters understood exactly what was going on and were backing in the process and the guys driving it.

Vested interests and supporters who thought they were owed something for their ‘investment’ in the club led to Bolts being dismissed.

Patience has never been a hallmark of the Carlton faithful. When Teague is able to build on the very strong foundations laid by the unselfish direction Bolton took the club, the same people calling for Bolton to be sacked will point to the ensuing success as proof they were right to change coaches and conveniently ignore one could not happen without the other ... and Bolton may well have got there anyway.

Yeah, well said. I mainly agree. No doubting he had a vision of slowly developing the young player's. We should always remain thankful to Brendan for his efforts. However in the last six weeks of his tenure everything seemed to go pear shaped. What was he thinking playing Gibbons at full-forward versus Cold Toast. The biggest criticism that i could find would be his game-day coaching. When something clearly was not working, he would stubbornly stick to his plan.

 

[Jabba73]

Yeah, well said. I mainly agree. No doubting he had a vision of slowly developing the young player's. We should always remain thankful to Brendan for his efforts. However in the last six weeks of his tenure everything seemed to go pear shaped. What was he thinking playing Gibbons at full-forward versus Cold Toast. The biggest criticism that i could find would be his game-day coaching. When something clearly was not working, he would stubbornly stick to his plan.

Yep, stubbornly sticking to the agreed plan was both his greatest contribution and the biggest cause of his demise.

Can’t fault the bloke for being loyal to what he agreed to

 

[Gethelred]

Very well put mate. Have thought this too! Wonder why this has occurred?

I agree, and I second this question to you Gethelred

Well, to continue the purely hypothetical...

MLG used first Trigg, then Judd and Bolton, to embark on a holistic shift within our club; we were modernising, and rapidly. We embarked on review after review, and we revamped and we 'bought into' a new vision, Bolton's vision; a whole club approach, the Journey. What it meant was that everyone was in it together, from SOS to the janitor, and everyone strove together to meet the new end. Trigg was the monitor for this, and Bolton the figurehead, with Judd being a public face of the 'new' Carlton; no longer beholden to moneyed interests or to the boys club. We hired Kate Jenkins to be on the board, we tightened up board appointments and the voting processes, and we set about the process of rebuilding from the bedrock up.

First, we dismissed Trigg. We did so because - by the very metrics he brought about in house - we were not improving sufficiently via membership numbers, and by standard measures we really should've (despite sitting at the base of the ladder). This is what I will term as the first crack in the armor; Bolton might have been the public face of the Journey, but Trigg was why and how we truly bought into it. He ensured that each minute component worked as it should, and he knew well enough to leave SOS alone; both, because you don't challenge a Silvagni at Carlton, and because he reported to the board and he knew modernising the recruiting, development was more necessary than otherwise. It was a compromise, between doing things 100% the right way and doing things 90% the right way but getting all stakeholders on board.

In comes Liddle, and from there comes Lloyd, and Brodie, and Agresta, and then Russel; all good appointments, and all good choices. However - and this is the biggest however in here - the tradeoff is that this actively shook the boat that Trigg determined should stay well enough alone. We had a surplus of talent within list management, and people were butting heads; there was series of reviews within each department, and those reviews meant people were replaced. Injuries also played a role; injuries meant that Bolton never got to make a yelp in his own defense onfield, and it meant that his position according to the powers that be within the club - who are still the same as they always were, just this time around they have been content to sit on their hands and try doing it the right way - became untenable. There is no accidents in his dismissal being after a poor loss to a weak Essendon, just as there is no accident in his replacement being a good Carlton man in Teague. We have rumours of Robert Wall's son coming over to assist in List Management; we have Walls installed in the box, ostensibly - publicly - as the replacement for Craig (who was another genuinely terrific initial appointment) but also there to directly report for some of the old voices and their interests.

Bolton was the last vestige of the Journey, of doing things holistically. Bolton's dismissal meant that we had if not abandoned the concepts of rebuild and of doing it properly, but it certainly meant that we thought we were sufficiently far into things to start to do them our way. And the Carlton way has always been brash, impatient, leading with out heads and damn the torpedoes. We are loud, and when we are disgruntled, we let people know; either through backchannels or rumour, or by directly giving a mouthpiece like Caroline Wilson or Tom Elliot a quiet word here or there. Suddenly, this is affirmed, by Teague winning a number of games and seemingly changing Carlton overnight.

This is not to say that this change is a bad thing. Bolton's gameday coaching was 'We'll back our plans', which is how most modern proteges of Clarkson operate; Simpson's the big one, but Beverage and Hardwick do so as well, but Teague is not from one of the three pillars of modern AFL coaching (Mark Robinson's Geelong, Paul Roos' Sydney, or Clarkson's Hawthorn) and is very much an 'I'll make my plans, but the second they're not working I'm going to shake things up and find out what does.' He's also - like Fagan - completely unafraid of a shootout.

What it does mean, though, is that we - the club, and the fans - need to be very careful. We've thrown out the bathwater; we've used Bolton and Trigg to bring about the initial change, and to set the foundations. Let's not through out due process and review for nepotism and micromanagement, which - if Old Carlton were to rear its head - is very much what could occur if things continue to revert.

 

[thylacine60]

Anyone seen Gethelred and Windhover in the same thread at the same time?

 

[Opine]

Well, to continue the purely hypothetical...

MLG used first Trigg, then Judd and Bolton, to embark on a holistic shift within our club; we were modernising, and rapidly. We embarked on review after review, and we revamped and we 'bought into' a new vision, Bolton's vision; a whole club approach, the Journey. What it meant was that everyone was in it together, from SOS to the janitor, and everyone strove together to meet the new end. Trigg was the monitor for this, and Bolton the figurehead, with Judd being a public face of the 'new' Carlton; no longer beholden to moneyed interests or to the boys club. We hired Kate Jenkins to be on the board, we tightened up board appointments and the voting processes, and we set about the process of rebuilding from the bedrock up.

First, we dismissed Trigg. We did so because - by the very metrics he brought about in house - we were not improving sufficiently via membership numbers, and by standard measures we really should've (despite sitting at the base of the ladder). This is what I will term as the first crack in the armor; Bolton might have been the public face of the Journey, but Trigg was why and how we truly bought into it. He ensured that each minute component worked as it should, and he knew well enough to leave SOS alone; both, because you don't challenge a Silvagni at Carlton, and because he reported to the board and he knew modernising the recruiting, development was more necessary than otherwise. It was a compromise, between doing things 100% the right way and doing things 90% the right way but getting all stakeholders on board.

In comes Liddle, and from there comes Lloyd, and Brodie, and Agresta, and then Russel; all good appointments, and all good choices. However - and this is the biggest however in here - the tradeoff is that this actively shook the boat that Trigg determined should stay well enough alone. We had a surplus of talent within list management, and people were butting heads; there was series of reviews within each department, and those reviews meant people were replaced. Injuries also played a role; injuries meant that Bolton never got to make a yelp in his own defense onfield, and it meant that his position according to the powers that be within the club - who are still the same as they always were, just this time around they have been content to sit on their hands and try doing it the right way - became untenable. There is no accidents in his dismissal being after a poor loss to a weak Essendon, just as there is no accident in his replacement being a good Carlton man in Teague. We have rumours of Robert Wall's son coming over to assist in List Management; we have Walls installed in the box, ostensibly - publicly - as the replacement for Craig (who was another genuinely terrific initial appointment) but also there to directly report for some of the old voices and their interests.

Bolton was the last vestige of the Journey, of doing things holistically. Bolton's dismissal meant that we had if not abandoned the concepts of rebuild and of doing it properly, but it certainly meant that we thought we were sufficiently far into things to start to do them our way. And the Carlton way has always been brash, impatient, leading with out heads and damn the torpedoes. We are loud, and when we are disgruntled, we let people know; either through backchannels or rumour, or by directly giving a mouthpiece like Caroline Wilson or Tom Elliot a quiet word here or there. Suddenly, this is affirmed, by Teague winning a number of games and seemingly changing Carlton overnight.

This is not to say that this change is a bad thing. Bolton's gameday coaching was 'We'll back our plans', which is how most modern proteges of Clarkson operate; Simpson's the big one, but Beverage and Hardwick do so as well, but Teague is not from one of the three pillars of modern AFL coaching (Mark Robinson's Geelong, Paul Roos' Sydney, or Clarkson's Hawthorn) and is very much an 'I'll make my plans, but the second they're not working I'm going to shake things up and find out what does.' He's also - like Fagan - completely unafraid of a shootout.

What it does mean, though, is that we - the club, and the fans - need to be very careful. We've thrown out the bathwater; we've used Bolton and Trigg to bring about the initial change, and to set the foundations. Let's not through out due process and review for nepotism and micromanagement, which - if Old Carlton were to rear its head - is very much what could occur if things continue to revert.

Well said mate.
Last week, I started to write; that despite his supposed failure to move south as promised, and whatever other excuses were thrown about, Trigg was the executive head that kept the team heading in the one direction. I stopped. The current shit wouldn't have happened if he were at the helm; rightly or wrongly am convinced of that.

When I read posts about lack of protocol or systems, as if they are the magical missing ingredient, I want to spew up. The best protocol is a united direction, best system is good leadership.

 

[Stamos]

Well said mate.
Last week, I started to write; that despite his supposed failure to move south as promised, and whatever other excuses were thrown about, Trigg was the executive head that kept the team heading in the one direction. I stopped. The current shit wouldn't have happened if he were at the helm; rightly or wrongly am convinced of that.

When I read posts about lack of protocol or systems, as if they are the magical missing ingredient, I want to spew up. The best protocol is a united direction, best system is good leadership.

The club has improved dramatically since we moved Trigg on.
I cannot believe that anyone is questioning that call.

 

[Opine]

The club has improved dramatically since we moved Trigg on.
I cannot believe that anyone is questioning that call.

I dun give a pointy fork what you believe.

 

[thylacine60]

and it wonders why it is one of the chosen 32 in the damp and the darkness...........

 

[Stamos]

I dun give a pointy fork what you believe.

Because they don't let you have a pointy fork?

 

[Jabba73]

I dun give a pointy fork what you believe.

That’s not very knife of you

 

[Opine]

Because they don't let you have a pointy fork?

 

[Jabba73]

and it wonders why it is one of the chosen 32 in the damp and the darkness...........

Thought Fair Work shut down your sweat shop?

 

[Gethelred]

The club has improved dramatically since we moved Trigg on.
I cannot believe that anyone is questioning that call.

Each and every decision has fallout, and no matter how good or meritorious the basis or the reasoning is, that there are consequences to each action taken should not be shied away from.

Trigg was Bolton's biggest supporter internally; you could see it in his actions, and in his words. His support of Bolton's programme was wholehearted, and it shaped the infancy of our rebuild in its comprehensibility and its depth. Holistic is the word I chose, and I did so for a reason; the All Blacks clean their rooms alongside the cleaners, and each person is no greater or more arrogant than the next. Clarkson won through in 2008 through his sport as war metaphor, the complete buy-in from his squad, 'one out, another soldier in' mantra. Unity is how teams achieve greatness in elite sport, and so it was unity that we sought.

Dismissing Trigg - however valid the reasons for doing so - removed that unflinching and uncompromising support for Bolton, leaving him vulnerable; almost as vulnerable as SOS left him by committing to a slash and burn rebuild, opting to go purely for KPP first and selecting smaller more talented mids instead of any ready to go types. Bolton, in the end, had no-where to go, and the unquestioning support was no longer there. Unity was compromised.

All of this (this conversation, I mean) started as why I thought we were leaking again, and why this is not a good thing. It's fine to disagree, but I'm not one for unquestioning or unreasoning support. I am a Blues supporter, but that does not make me blind to who or what we are, and that does not entail that I should support each and every decision we have ever made.

 

[Gethelred]

Anyone seen Gethelred and Windhover in the same thread at the same time?

He takes the day shift.

 

[Stamos]

Bolton was vulnerable because after a 2 win season, he ordered the players to go defensive when we were 6 goals up against the Hawks.
He was a pig headed micro-manager, and that's only acceptable if you're a winner.
It was his own damn fault.

 

[thylacine60]

Thought Fair Work shut down your sweat shop?

I just claimed Calombaris Syndrome and they left me alone................

 

[thylacine60]

Bolton was vulnerable because after a 2 win season, he ordered the players to go defensive when we were 6 goals up against the Hawks.
He was a pig headed micro-manager, and that's only acceptable if you're a winner.
It was his own damn fault.

who's suggesting his demise was anything but his own responsibility?

 

[Gethelred]

Bolton was vulnerable because after a 2 win season, he ordered the players to go defensive when we were 6 goals up against the Hawks.
He was a pig headed micro-manager, and that's only acceptable if you're a winner.
It was his own damn fault.

Yet the final nail was not hit that week, but a few weeks later after a sub par showing against Essendon. And lo and behold, who is chosen after an exhaustive process, but an ex Carlton player who knows everyone already as coach?

Yes, Bolton was stubborn, and yes, Bolton certainly sowed the seeds of his own demise. But there's always more to the story, always something going on in the background. That is what I meant when I said that this is who we are.

It's also far, far easier to do what you're doing and blaming someone for their own fate, than observing the fact that they were never in control of it to begin with. There's even hints of it now, in how we're talking about the club on this very site; that Bolton was the coach that had to go to bring Teague to the helm. That's one hell of a parable, no? One recognizes the narrative pattern immediately. There's a sheepish ruefulness about how we speak about Bolton now, about how we react to his no longer being there, about how we committed to his vision purely only to seemingly perpetuate it under another leader.

I'll pipe down for now. This isn't my read on what's happening exactly, more my read of the worst case of what could be happening. We don't know, thus speculation is all we have; and I really don't like the fact that we have a marketer as our CEO, as that immediately renders any information that leaves the club (formally or informally) suspect.