Pick 29: Shai Bolton

[Ridley]

Reckon we can be a bit harsh on Shai , I think we the Tiger faithful have unrealistic expectations on him , because of he’s second to none agility , leap and general all around exciting way he plays the game we talk of him as a superstar, imho he’s not that he’s bloody good and a huge part of our team , however he is far from elite with his kicking and defensive play and still has large parts of games where he goes missing .

Its a fine line with his hungriness around goal and taking best option, probably needs to have a chat with Jack .

I'm not sure about expectations being too high. He should be able to kick goals from 10-20m out on no angle with little pressure. He seems to try and make it a lot harder than it needs to be. Lairising. That first one he missed at the city end in the first quarter was ridiculous. Deliberately ran almost parallel at the goals and hooked across his body instead of straight at the goals with a drop punt; as Danny did successfully later in the quarter. He missed by miles; not even close. Of the 5 behinds he kicked; 4 of them I can remember and all were absolute sodas. His sloppy finishing could have cost us the game last night and ended up costing a 6-7 goal win.

For such a sublimely talented player his finishing needs a lot of work. If he kept it simple in this area he'd do a lot better.

 

[jb03]

For his skill and wizardry he is not an elite kick, certainly not when kicking for goal on set shots. He tends to lean back slightly so can kick the ball too high and doesn't always strike the ball in the right spot.

 

[Mr Brightside]

I'm not sure about expectations being too high. He should be able to kick goals from 10-20m out on no angle with little pressure. He seems to try and make it a lot harder than it needs to be. Lairising. That first one he missed at the city end in the first quarter was ridiculous. Deliberately ran almost parallel at the goals and hooked across his body instead of straight at the goals with a drop punt; as Danny did successfully later in the quarter. He missed by miles; not even close. Of the 5 behinds he kicked; 4 of them I can remember and all were absolute sodas. His sloppy finishing could have cost us the game last night and ended up costing a 6-7 goal win.

For such a sublimely talented player his finishing needs a lot of work. If he kept it simple in this area he'd do a lot better.

No excuse for any player to miss some of what Shai missed last night, however better players then him have missed them and plenty more will too .

In Shais defence , imho he plays the way he plays and looks exactly the same when he kicks freak goals or misses easy ones , it’s his laconic nature is my guess.

On expectations I simply mean we’ve put him on a pedestal that he dosent belong ( well atleast yet) as I said imho he’s bloody good , but not a superstar and most definitely shouldn’t be compared to Dusty , nor should anyone really, we’ve got to remember how far Shai has come , not long ago was just a small forward with a few highlights and he still only averages a goal a game .

let’s remember this is the first time he’s ever been talked about in AA conversations, graph is definitely going up

 

[saigon tiger]

Getting bloated on the bath water. Needs to drink it through a straw a little bit more slowly!

 

[AngryAnt]

It wasn't the kicking that was the issue. I haven’t seen the replay, so it may not have been as obvious on TV, but the issue was horrible decision making.

For at least 3 of his behinds, he has one or two team mates steaming forward ahead of the ball in easy handball position.

He's a genuine star, but played like he had to be the match winner.

Last night was a bad slip back to his old habits of burning teammates and going for personal glory.

Hopefully coaches get him to pull his head in.

I don't even care about missing the set shot - that happens. Ignoring teammates is what burns my urine

 

[tigertim]

No excuse for any player to miss some of what Shai missed last night, however better players then him have missed them and plenty more will too .

In Shais defence , imho he plays the way he plays and looks exactly the same when he kicks freak goals or misses easy ones , it’s his laconic nature is my guess.

On expectations I simply mean we’ve put him on a pedestal that he dosent belong ( well atleast yet) as I said imho he’s bloody good , but not a superstar and most definitely shouldn’t be compared to Dusty , nor should anyone really, we’ve got to remember how far Shai has come , not long ago was just a small forward with a few highlights and he still only averages a goal a game .

let’s remember this is the first time he’s ever been talked about in AA conversations, graph is definitely going up

Yep, it’ll be long time til Shai kicks 0.5 again.

 

[deedee]

Round 14 B.O.G

 

[Brodders17]

i cant believe the calls of selfish. with George out, someone had to play his role and Shai did it to perfection. running around in circles, making the simple look difficult. the 0.5 was just the icing on the cake.

 

[TigerMasochist]

I too havent seen the replay but at the ground he was electric. He was dancing around Port players like they were statues. Yes he burnt some team mates but in all sports the stars want to be the match winner.

How old is he - 23? Plenty of football yet before he reaches maturity as an AFL player.

Got caught dirty dancin plenty of times too.

 

[TigerMasochist]

Firstly lets stop comparing Shai or any other footballer to Dusty.

Why?? Shai's easily as brilliantly talented as Dusty.
Unfortunately there's to many times that Shai forgets he has a bunch of team mates to share the game with.
One of Dusty's greatest attributes it that he's constantly bringing his team mates into the game n helping make them better

 

[Mr Brightside]

Yep, it’ll be long time til Shai kicks 0.5 again.

It’s rare air , Georgie did it in a GF

 

[Coburgtiger]

I too havent seen the replay but at the ground he was electric. He was dancing around Port players like they were statues. Yes he burnt some team mates but in all sports the stars want to be the match winner.

How old is he - 23? Plenty of football yet before he reaches maturity as an AFL player.

Burning team mates to try and be the guywho wins the match is how you end up being Noflags Dangerfield.

Shai will be (already is) a much better player than Dangerfield, but the way he went about it last night was the antithesis of the Richmond way. It’s not just that he kicked 0.5. Who cares, everyone has bad days, and he’s normally lethal around goal (Though a weirdly poor set shot directly in front).

The way he burned his teammates last night either indicates a lack of trust, a failure of composure, or a touch of arrogance. None of which is good. But he’ll correct. He’s 23, a two time premiership player, and (IMO) the brightest young prospect in the whole league. All of which are good. He just needs to completely eradicate last night from his repertoire. His skill, speed and electricity was there, but every other thing was horrendous.

Almost the worst play of the night wasn’t even goal kicking. In the last, when the game was tight, he fumbled a centre clearance, ran back to defend (good) then got the ball in a pack. Instead of a clear handball to a free teammate, a long clearing handball like our defenders do, or a get out kick to the boundary, he elected to duck his head and take on three players then get caught holding the ball. TRUST your teammates! Be a Richmond man.

It’s a great game to learn from. Dusty’s greatest strength (or one of many) has been his absolute adherence to trusting his teammates (even when he should do it himself). It truly has separated him from a bunch of wannabes like Danger. And it netted us three flags. Bolton just needs to calibrate with the great man’s guidance.

 

[jb03]

It’s rare air , Georgie did it in a GF

There was a stat on twitter something along the lines of Buddy has kicked at least 5 points on 33 occasions. The next couple in line (which may have included Tom Lynch) has only done it 5 times

 

[bugsy]

I’m old school and don’t need unnecessary extra stress and frustration in my life…. especially when watching my beloved Tigers play. Last night was not an enjoyable game even though we came out on top and are now back in the 8.

It’s a pattern we’ve seen too much of already this season. Play well for most quarters then like busted rissoles for 15-20 minutes and look like rank amateurs. It’s contagious and applies equally to both young and older players.

We can still win the flag in 2022 but only if we absolutely knuckle down on every aspect of the game. Obvious things like no grogging on(like the D’s), continual exaggerating for frees(Cats), or muglairing(Pies).

Every player has to commit but I’ll give two simple examples of late. Bolton going for the miracle play every time and always watching his replays on the big screen. Hugo was often guilty of same thing last night. Both are too valuable to be allowed to continue these bad habits!

If I was Dimma I’d pull these two quietly aside and give them a tough message. “Have a good look in the mirror, pull your heads in and get back to short back & sides haircuts. Richmond doesn’t want any Gingervitis/Clangerfield show-off types here who divert media attention for all the wrong reasons. Just totally focus on setting team first examples like Dusty, JR8, Cotch, Grimes etc are doing. We want that 2022 flag!”

 

[mrposhman]

I'm not sure about expectations being too high. He should be able to kick goals from 10-20m out on no angle with little pressure. He seems to try and make it a lot harder than it needs to be. Lairising. That first one he missed at the city end in the first quarter was ridiculous. Deliberately ran almost parallel at the goals and hooked across his body instead of straight at the goals with a drop punt; as Danny did successfully later in the quarter. He missed by miles; not even close. Of the 5 behinds he kicked; 4 of them I can remember and all were absolute sodas. His sloppy finishing could have cost us the game last night and ended up costing a 6-7 goal win.

For such a sublimely talented player his finishing needs a lot of work. If he kept it simple in this area he'd do a lot better.

The ironic bit about his kicking last night was the one that went straight was the pass he attempted in the 2nd to Noah at the top of the square, it was too flat to be a kick for goal, but had Noah missed it, it was going straight through the middle.

I'm also less concerned about his kicking in general last night, it happens, but as others have pointed out it was not playing the Richmond way, not taking the right option for the team.

 

[Panthera Tigris]

No excuse for any player to miss some of what Shai missed last night, however better players then him have missed them and plenty more will too .

In Shais defence , imho he plays the way he plays and looks exactly the same when he kicks freak goals or misses easy ones , it’s his laconic nature is my guess.

On expectations I simply mean we’ve put him on a pedestal that he dosent belong ( well atleast yet) as I said imho he’s bloody good , but not a superstar and most definitely shouldn’t be compared to Dusty , nor should anyone really, we’ve got to remember how far Shai has come , not long ago was just a small forward with a few highlights and he still only averages a goal a game .

let’s remember this is the first time he’s ever been talked about in AA conversations, graph is definitely going up

Shane Edwards had a similar laconic style in his early years. I remember him darting in and out of traffic, finding impossible gaps between opposition would be tacklers, runs away from the pressure, finds himself well clear, no longer under pressure, crowd is on it's feet with such a spectacular build up and his intended pass to a leading forward, or shot at goal is a worm burner off his toe.

But the next kick he got might have been struck as sweet as can be, hitting the leading forward on the tit.

 

[caesar]

Ridiculous pile on on Shai, still had an almost anything game, still provided some creative play but yes off on some of his finishing.
People wanting to take taking on multiple opponents, that mere mortals could only contemplate and only dream of, out of his repertoire, how boring to want to harness a player that electrifies the game.
Did I get frustrated last night? yes but only because it didn't come off not that he tried.
**Still the number 1 score assist player on our list this year up till bye.

 

[mrposhman]

Ridiculous pile on on Shai, still had an almost anything game, still provided some creative play but yes off on some of his finishing.
People wanting to take taking on multiple opponents, that mere mortals could only contemplate and only dream of, out of his repertoire, how boring to want to harness a player that electrifies the game.
Did I get frustrated last night? yes but only because it didn't come off not that he tried.

I love him taking on multiple opponents, but the point is that isn't the only option and isn't always the best option (sometimes it is, and we all love his ability to skip past and wriggle away from opponents). There were at least a couple of times last night that resulted in turnovers (mainly free kicks for HTB) because he didn't give the handball when he should have. Its not his ability but his assessment of his best option last night was off. Its not something we generally see from Shai which is why people are commenting on it, generally Shai's decision making is very good, but last night his decision making radar was certainly off.

The 3 obvious ones were, 3rd quarter, he played some handball tennis with Dan Rioli on the Shane Warne stand wing, went inside 50 and instead of centreing the ball decided to snap for goal from 50m out and kicked out on the full - 9 times out of 10 Shai centres that.
Not sure of the quarter, might have been the 4th (we were kicking to the PRE), tried to take on about 3 tacklers in the forward line, I think spook mentioned that he looked for the handball instead of kicking, he did do that and had 2 players over the top who would have run in to an open goal, but he dodged back inside to get the ball on his left foot and was called HTB - normally Shai would handball that
In the last I think, won the ball out of the centre, instead of either handballing or kicking the ball wide, dodged back into the pack and was gang tackled , again HTB and again 'd say 9 times out of 10 he would have given that off to the runners and we'd have been kicking the ball inside 50.

I love Shai but some of these acts were very un-Shai like from what we have come to expect over the last few years as he has matured and gone back to that 19 year old kid that burst onto the scene.

 

[tigerman]

I love how Shai plays the game, sure his kicking lets him down at times, and he could look for a better option sometimes.
But the way he flys for marks and turns players inside out is dead-set, jump out of your seat, exhilarating.

The only thing I don't like is when he tries to dodge opponents in the 'backline' like he did last night and got caught. Give it off Shai, or put your boot into it.

 

[spook]

His conversion rate remains worse than Castagna’s.

Not counting George's out on the fulls and complete misses. Richo would be the only bloke who's accuracy stats benefit from that exclusion close to as much as George.

Btw, Selfish Shai has 12 goal assists from 12 games this year, and had 20 from 20 games last year. He was one of six Tigers to have one last night (Dusty had two). Career average of 0.8 goal assists per game. Dusty had 16 from 16 last year, 3 from 6 this year (0.7 per game career average). Jack has 4 from 10 this year, 17 from 22 last year (0.7 per game career average). Dion has 10 from 9 this year, 1 from 9 last year (0.5 per game career average, same as Cotch). Sheds, who had a career-best 31 goal assists from 24 games in 2018, has 10 from 12 this year after 7 from 16 last year (0.6 per game career).

Selfish Shai averages more goal assists per game than anyone on the list, while averaging a goal a game himself. And next week he reaches game 80, the rough approximation of when a player starts to "get it". If we can get there and hold our own in the middle he is going to rip a September game to shreds. 19 disposals, 0.5 in June will be 23 and 5.1 in September.