Pick 29: Shai Bolton

[Tigerdangerous]

He is our best player by a country mile but set up to fail by the match committee, leading to its’ decisions made about where and how he was to play that position.

The club wanted to trade him as the liklihood of his playing in another grand final, given the team around him, is now very small. I get that and can accept that he has been sacrificed for the long term advantage of the club.

But what I don’t appreciate are those who seem intent on blaming him for his present situation and pressing on with crap about his lack of endeavour.

A truly great player, plays for his team and his club no matter where he is asked to play.

A truly great player looks around his side and club and sees the growing number of season ending injuries to team mates, the number of young, inexperienced players trying to plug gaps all over the field, and will rise to the occasion and help his new coach and team as best he can.

Bolton has taken his considerable pay packet each month and wants to leave the club after a very difficult year for the club.

Stop making excuses for this talented paper Tiger.

 

[Sintiger]

Coaching where Shai played this year would have been a very difficult task given the situation we were in.
He was our best mid and our best forward at the same time and deciding where he should play was at times a no win task.
Look at the st kilda game in the gather round as example. We kicked 9 goals of which Shai kicked 4, if he had played mid we may have had 10 more inside 50s and scored even less because we really didn’t have another effective forward.
Later in the season we had lots of inside 50s although the quality was questionable, but we basically had no forward line, except for Shai.
Maybe he could have been given more bursts on the ball, I am not sure. He attended plenty of centre bounces.
There is no way he will play permanent mid at Freo, he will play the same role he played with us. A role that was essentially the same under Dimma btw.

 

[momentai]

A truly great player, plays for his team and his club no matter where he is asked to play.

A truly great player looks around his side and club and sees the growing number of season ending injuries to team mates, the number of young, inexperienced players trying to plug gaps all over the field, and will rise to the occasion and help his new coach and team as best he can.

Bolton has taken his considerable pay packet each month and wants to leave the club after a very difficult year for the club.

Stop making excuses for this talented paper Tiger.

A really great club does not abandon its great players.
Make no mistake that is what has happen here, a matter you have chosen to ignore.

 

[momentai]

Coaching where Shai played this year would have been a very difficult task given the situation we were in.
He was our best mid and our best forward at the same time and deciding where he should play was at times a no win task.
Look at the st kilda game in the gather round as example. We kicked 9 goals of which Shai kicked 4, if he had played mid we may have had 10 more inside 50s and scored even less because we really didn’t have another effective forward.
Later in the season we had lots of inside 50s although the quality was questionable, but we basically had no forward line, except for Shai.
Maybe he could have been given more bursts on the ball, I am not sure. He attended plenty of centre bounces.
There is no way he will play permanent mid at Freo, he will play the same role he played with us. A role that was essentially the same under Dimma btw.

Sin you are right in that our situation was more complicated given the loss of Lynch and then Dusty.
But the game is won and lost in the midfield.
Shai was out of most games because he was for the most part, confined to a dysfunctional forward line.
And on those occasions when he finally would be pushed into the midfield it was usually well into the second half when the game was well and truely over.

The decisions made were n’t that hard if we actually wanted to try and win.

 

[Tigers of Old]

Was no doubt a mistake not to play him in the midfield more this year.
Now he’s headed to another club.
Not great. In fact I’d say it’s a bit of a stuff up from Ooze.
Think he will flourish at the Dockers.

 

[TigerMasochist]

Think he will flourish at the Dockers.

Certainly should. He'll have a midfield n forward line around him again that allows him to play Shai footy. Something that unfortunately we no longer have.

 

[Sintiger]

Sin you are right in that our situation was more complicated given the loss of Lynch and then Dusty.
But the game is won and lost in the midfield.
Shai was out of most games because he was for the most part, confined to a dysfunctional forward line.
And on those occasions when he finally would be pushed into the midfield it was usually well into the second half when the game was well and truely over.

The decisions made were n’t that hard if we actually wanted to try and win.

No point getting it in there if we can't score. I did say he could have had more bursts on the ball but I can totally understand why he played a lot forward.
To me it was very similar to decisions made about Balta. Yze made it very clear in the 2nd half of the season he would prefer to have Balta in the backline but he was left with basically no choice at times because we had other options for key backs and no other options up forward.
We needed 2 Boltons and 2 Baltas
Btw I have never bought into the narrative that he wasn't trying. I watched a lot of games live and I never saw a lack of endeavour from him. Shai is laconic, he is the Mark Waugh of footy, but that does not mean he isn't busting a gut for the team.

 

[Aegean Tiger]

A really great club does not abandon its great players.
Make no mistake that is what has happen here, a matter you have chosen to ignore.

Agreed. Shai’s preseason should have been tailored towards an 80/20 mid/ forward role.

Yes body language was poor at times but club destroyed him this yr.

 

[Tigers of Old]

As Sin said, we need two Boltons.. Well we now have no Boltons.
No guarantees whatsoever that the speculative draft picks we get for him will be AFL quality players let alone better than him. In fact I'd say unlikely.
You don't know what you've got til it's gone.

 

[Little Ziggyadee]

As Sin said, we need two Boltons.. Well we now have no Boltons.
No guarantees whatsoever that the speculative draft picks we get for him will be AFL quality players let alone better than him. In fact I'd say unlikely.
You don't know what you've got til it's gone.

155% right.
Your got 2% chance you will get anything as good as both Rioli and Bolton.
As soon as we get Rioli made into this glorious mature footballer, he wants to leave.
And Bolton is as good, maybe even better then Warner.
I'm with you 100%, we won't be getting anything near these 2 in the draft.
The impact of them leaving will be unbelievably bad.
This just thinking about it gives me anxiety because all I see is Ottens leaving and Pattison and Meyer moving in.
I will be happy if we get 2 glorious hungry kids playing for us next years. Kids that want to play and desperate to succeed.
Alot of pressure of Toche and Co.

 

[mrposhman]

Coaching where Shai played this year would have been a very difficult task given the situation we were in.
He was our best mid and our best forward at the same time and deciding where he should play was at times a no win task.
Look at the st kilda game in the gather round as example. We kicked 9 goals of which Shai kicked 4, if he had played mid we may have had 10 more inside 50s and scored even less because we really didn’t have another effective forward.
Later in the season we had lots of inside 50s although the quality was questionable, but we basically had no forward line, except for Shai.
Maybe he could have been given more bursts on the ball, I am not sure. He attended plenty of centre bounces.
There is no way he will play permanent mid at Freo, he will play the same role he played with us. A role that was essentially the same under Dimma btw.

I do agree that the situation would have changed through the year regardless, but the decision was made before the season started and before all those injuries occurred. Yze said that Bolton was going to be primarily a forward and Dusty primarily a mid. He got that wrong.

 

[Sintiger]

I do agree that the situation would have changed through the year regardless, but the decision was made before the season started and before all those injuries occurred. Yze said that Bolton was going to be primarily a forward and Dusty primarily a mid. He got that wrong.

He probably got Martin wrong, overestimated his physical capacity, but personally I have always felt that Bolton was best as a burst on baller, especially in the centre square, but was and is a great small forward.
I think that’s how we will see Fremantle use him as well.
The issue wasn’t Bolton, it was our lack of mids exacerbated by injuries and the fact that some didn’t come on as expected.

 

[TigerMasochist]

You don't know what you've got til it's gone.

Big yellow taxi took away our man Shai.

 

[TigerMasochist]

Stand still in this caper n you get overtaken in a hurry by everyone. We got 3 flags n stopped to smell the roses now we've been pretty much lapped by everyone in the comp.
No choice now but to rebuild for generation next so that we can rejoin the race, then catch up to the pack and hopefully over take the front runners in a few years time. Luckily the AFL comp is like a never ending marathon n if you manage your run properly n surge at the right times you can get to lead for a while before you wind up back in the pack.

 

[achillesjones]

Big yellow taxi took away our man Shai.

And they charged the dockers a couple of very nice draft picks just to see 'im.

 

[momentai]

I do agree that the situation would have changed through the year regardless, but the decision was made before the season started and before all those injuries occurred. Yze said that Bolton was going to be primarily a forward and Dusty primarily a mid. He got that wrong.

IMO his greater mistake was that he didn’t adapt to the changes needed in respect of Chai and where he should be played. Some extra training maybe but it wasn’t as though he doesn’t know how to play mid.

 

[momentai]

…. I watched a lot of games live and I never saw a lack of endeavour from him. Shai is laconic, he is the Mark Waugh of footy, but that does not mean he isn't busting a gut for the team.

Well said.

 

[The_General]

He is our best player by a country mile but set up to fail by the match committee, leading to its’ decisions made about where and how he was to play that position.

The club wanted to trade him as the liklihood of his playing in another grand final, given the team around him, is now very small. I get that and can accept that he has been sacrificed for the long term advantage of the club.

But what I don’t appreciate are those who seem intent on blaming him for his present situation and pressing on with crap about his lack of endeavour.

Not blaming him for our situation.
I'm saying his performance output doesn't match his potential. He's not a passive rag doll who can't influence things.
You're also assuming he hasn't bought into the changes.

Stop behaving like a drama queen and read what is actually written.

 

[Cooper O'Reilly]

Agreed. Shai’s preseason should have been tailored towards an 80/20 mid/ forward role.

Yes body language was poor at times but club destroyed him this yr.

So it’s okay for players to not give 100% if they don’t get to play in their position of choice. That’s a losers mentality.
Professional footballers get paid extremely well and giving 100% is a non negotiable as far as I’m concerned.
Actually I take that back, it doesn’t matter what level of football you play there’s no room for blokes who aren’t prepared to give everything you’ve got

 

[mrposhman]

So it’s okay for players to not give 100% if they don’t get to play in their position of choice. That’s a losers mentality.
Professional footballers get paid extremely well and giving 100% is a non negotiable as far as I’m concerned.
Actually I take that back, it doesn’t matter what level of football you play there’s no room for blokes who aren’t prepared to give everything you’ve got

I see it more like Sin. I never saw anything of Shai when at the games mainly, that he wasn't putting in 100%. This seems to be a generally held view for some reason but personally I didn't see that from him. It was just for large parts of the game this year the ball wasn't in his vicinity.

He can still put in 100% but become disillusioned with the way he is being asked to play.