Pick 29: Shai Bolton

[Coburgtiger]

nah I am not missing the point. you are making the art of recruiting sound like an impossible gamble and there is no evidence that our club is lacking in that department.

the point is that Bolton IS a game changer, but not even he can save us from ten goals down.

our on-field performance will get worse before it gets better. our list is in poor shape. it will take a few years to rise again.

what can Bolton do for us in that time aside from give fans a modicum of joy? it is in our best interests to attack the draft, rebuild the midfield, have a bunch of high picks coming through together.

bolton is wasted at our club for the next three years and simply saying it's "hard to draft good players" won't convince me otherwise.

our premiership teams were laced with high picks we got right - cotch, dusty, jack, prestia (trade), vlastuin, ellis and so on. our most recent crack at the first round yielded gibcus, who barring injury looks great.

no reason why an elite club can't get it right again. reading this thread you'd think our recruiters were completely incompetent

This is all beside the point.

It doesn't matter how good recruiting is, again, you're going after a straw man here. The best, most competent, most insightful, nostradamic recruiters in the world are still extremely unlikely to improve our ability to contend in the next 3/4/5 years from what we would get from Bolton today.

I don't see how that's arguable?

 

[toothless]

Remember its not also about the draft. We can also trade and look at free agency.

The one I'd be looking at as a FA for 2025 is LDU. Perfect type of player for us that we don't have, if North finish bottom 2 again, then you'd think he'd be gettable. He'd be wanting to see quicker improvement than that.

Is in terrible form, reportedly disinterested this season so far, can't really blame him

 

[Coburgtiger]

 

[spook]

Carts: things change quickly in footy
Also Carts: we're *smile* ed for eight years

 

[Baron Samedi]

This is all beside the point.

It doesn't matter how good recruiting is, again, you're going after a straw man here. The best, most competent, most insightful, nostradamic recruiters in the world are still extremely unlikely to improve our ability to contend in the next 3/4/5 years from what we would get from Bolton today.

I don't see how that's arguable?

one bolton, out of alignment with a flag tilt, with perhaps four years of gold service still to offer, traded out

for

at least two x first round mids with twenty-four years of silver service (at least) traded in

new recruits aligning with a flag tilt

makes sense to me, especially with our solid record with higher picks in the last 7-8 years

 

[tigertim]

View attachment 22408

There was this same argument from some here about Lids when was around the same age. I found it perplexing then and still do.

 

[Baron Samedi]

Carts: things change quickly in footy
Also Carts: we're *smile* ed for eight years

our poor list can only be changed quickly with increased draft capital.

all the scenarios you have posited with bolton still on the list consign us to a crawl back to the top

 

[Baron Samedi]

View attachment 22408

i would be looking for pure mids though, 6-7 years younger?

you are ignoring age as a factor and how it aligns with our premiership clock

which appears to be around 3am at the moment

 

[Baron Samedi]

here's the rub for those affronted with the idea of trading Bolton

we are OUT of flag 14 considerations as long as he remains because with our limited draft capital, even if we finish bottom four this year and next, our list isn't complete enough to have us contending anytime soon. bolton will be over 30 before we're a fluker's chance of making top four. with tassie eating up recruits left and right.

given the state of our list, he is wasted now and will be wasted over the prime years of his career.

trading bolton jumpstarts the next generation, our next midfield.

 

[DuD_Delist]

I totally agree with what you are saying. Carts / Baron's 2 personalities seem to have the belief that we have nothing and will be out of any sort of finals mix for the next 10 years, I'm with you, I'm a lot more glass half full than that. Shai is still only 25 and has plenty of footy left in him. If we don't challenge again whilst he is still playing footy then we've done something very wrong.

I look at those 26 and under currently and its better than most suggest (but with a massive void at FF). Only showing those that have debuted so far.

B Gibcus (21), Miller (24), Tresize (21)
HB Rioli (26), Brown (20), Baker (26)
C Banks (21), Taranto (26), RalphSmith (22)
HF Sonsie (21), Balta (24), Campbell (19)
F Mansell (23), ,,,,,,,, MRJ (21)
R Ryan (23), Bolton (25), Ross (23)
I/C Graham (26), Young (25), McAuliffe (19)

That has the startings of a decent team that needs some star power. If we get a top 5 pick, and look to trade with others into the top 10 or around about there. If Bakes wants to go home, then we can arrange for some teens picks there, maybe similar with Graham if he chooses to go home to SA as a FA, depending on salary we may get band 2 or 3 which will be similar picks anyway.

It won't take a lot for the above to turnaround and there are others that could come into that team. Juddy, Coulthard, Cumberland, Dow and Lefau are either good depth or possibly in that best 22 26 and under. Then theres the ones that haven't seen a debut yet, we know the club love Smith and were very complimentary when we signed Fawcett so who knows.

1 good draft / trade period could have a massive impact on where we are in 2 or 3 years time.

If Baker goes i'd chase Treacy as part of the trade.

 

[DuD_Delist]

totally get what you're saying here but this team isn't good enough, not even with a top five pick added in.

we need to basically rebuild the midfield from the ground up - from the top of the draft - if we want to replicate the 2017-2020 midfield.

this scenario does not provide enough quality. premierships are hard to win.

Dusty>>Bolton
Cotch>>top 5 pick (2024)
Rance>>Gibcus
Jack/Lynch>>Is the only issue.
As i said above.I'd chase Treacy for Bakes trade.

 

[Baron Samedi]

We should be planning for another window while we have Shai at his peak. He turns 26 in December so that's another five years. That's an eternity in football.

September 2027 is 3.5 years from now. Let's have a look at the age profile of our current list by then:

34, almost 35 - Lynch
33 - Vlastuin, Nank
31 - Short
30 - The Prince and Hopper
29 - Taranto, Lefau, Bakes, Graham, Young (Shai a few months off 29)
28 - Miller (Balta almost)
27 - Ross, Mansell (*Tarryn Thomas*), Samson a few months off
26 - Dow, Cumbo and Coulthard
25 - Trezise, MoJu and Bauer
24 - Godcus, Brown, Juddy, Sonz, Banks
23 - Green (Smith, Seth a few months off) (*Cadman*)
22 - MC Fkn-A, Fawcett
21 - *Finn O'Sullivan, Sam Lalor, Taj Hotton*

Plenty of quality. Lots around Shai's age. Some holes to fill. We have Blair.

Hold. Go again.

again, I point to this list (thanks spook)

it's not good enough to win a flag. not in a million years.

"some holes to fill"

a dozen at least.

 

[Baron Samedi]

Dusty>>Bolton
Cotch>>top 5 pick (2024)
Rance>>Gibcus
Jack/Lynch>>Is the only issue.
As i said above.I'd chase Treacy for Bakes trade.

bolton is a superstar but not quite as good as Dusty, and certainly not as reliable in big games (JUST comparing to dusty here). what price bolton for a normie? burst player and perhaps more easily sat on / negated than dusty

sure, a top five mid pick could net you a cotchin

gibcus's ceiling can be compared to rance but has been curtailed by injury unfortunately

jack and lynch is a big issue that might be solved by FA

too many questions for mine without more draft capital

 

[Coburgtiger]

i would be looking for pure mids though, 6-7 years younger?

you are ignoring age as a factor and how it aligns with our premiership clock

which appears to be around 3am at the moment

Okay, so to clarify, this is looking at not contending for the next 4 or 5 years then?

There was this same argument from some here about Lids when was around the same age. I found it perplexing then and still do.

Lids was nearly 30 and pretty much cooked.

 

[tigertim]

Okay, so to clarify, this is looking at not contending for the next 4 or 5 years then?


Lids was nearly 30 and pretty much cooked.

No, I’m referring back to circa 2012/13.

 

[DuD_Delist]

Sure, that’s fair. I think our current list is on the precipice.

Lynch can’t get on the park, I think a banged up Vlastuin will retire within a couple of seasons, our best young player has had a horror run which might curtail his potential.

There are some good kids on the list but nowhere near enough to challenge again IMO.

If we aren’t creative at the trade / draft table then I think the climb back up the ladder will be very slow.

Gotta get it right before Tassie get their picks

 

[DuD_Delist]

Remember its not also about the draft. We can also trade and look at free agency.

The one I'd be looking at as a FA for 2025 is LDU. Perfect type of player for us that we don't have, if North finish bottom 2 again, then you'd think he'd be gettable. He'd be wanting to see quicker improvement than that.

Why would he jump from one cellar dweller to another?

 

[DuD_Delist]

our poor list can only be changed quickly with increased draft capital.

all the scenarios you have posited with bolton still on the list consign us to a crawl back to the top

Understand what your getting at and if we didn't have these multi picks in this years draft plus maybe Baker going then i'd agree.
But if we play our cards right we may have 3 1sts and keep Bolton who by your definition is worth 2 so therefore we're ahead so no need.

 

[DuD_Delist]

bolton is a superstar but not quite as good as Dusty, and certainly not as reliable in big games (JUST comparing to dusty here). what price bolton for a normie? burst player and perhaps more easily sat on / negated than dusty

sure, a top five mid pick could net you a cotchin

gibcus's ceiling can be compared to rance but has been curtailed by injury unfortunately

jack and lynch is a big issue that might be solved by FA

too many questions for mine without more draft capital

No one is as good as Dusty but Bolton is the closest on our list.
Can't guarantee any picks we get for Bolton are going to be even at Bolton level.
Well yeah Gibcus has injury issues but a Young Rance had Skill issues when he started.
I agree.FA is good for Kp's.

 

[mrposhman]

Why would he jump from one cellar dweller to another?

I guess it comes down to who he trusts to move up the ladder quickly. A team with a lot of top end draft talent that still seems to not be able to string it together, or 1 of the strongest clubs in the AFL, with a better list than Carts things we have.

Lets say as a hypothetical, we get a top 5 mid this year, and LDU in 2025 (for the 2026 season, then our 1st midfield group could be (with ages in brackets), Bolton (27), LDU (26), Taranto (28), Top 5 pick 2024 (20) in 2026. Our 2nd string mids would include Hopper (29), McAuliffe (21), Ross (25), Baker (28), Graham (28), unless we trade any of the others but obviously the list above doesn't trade anyone else in (or look at what else we get with our draft hand this year in particular.

I think most can see where our defence is moving towards, if we can nail some picks / FA's to get our midfield up and running, then its just our forward line.

I'm certainly a lot more glass half full than some on this thread. We have a lot of the cogs building, but we need those superstars to elevate is, and we need our forward line (talls) to be fixed. If Fawcett comes along (once he gets over shaggers back) then who knows what we might have in a couple of years.