Craig Bolton

[swannieserin]

With LRT playing in the ruck last night, I think the game against Freo demonstrated that Craig Bolton is not as indispensible as some on RWO believe. He was beaten soundly by Pavlich all over the ground.

Craig is not a bad defender by any means, but perhaps not suited to a star like Pavlich, and his success to date could be better attributed to playing on second or third best opposition forwards.

Pavlich took advantage of being faster than Craig, and was almost always in front. You can't kick 4 goals without beating your defender.

Watching the game live gave a very distinct impression that LRT was much needed in defence as well as in the ruck.

I sincerely doubt that he would have been BOG last week had he been playing Tarrant.

[sydneyswans1989]

Re: Craig Bolton

Originally posted by swannieserin
With LRT playing in the ruck last night, I think the game against Freo demonstrated that Craig Bolton is not as indispensible as some on RWO believe. He was beaten soundly by Pavlich all over the ground.

Craig is not a bad defender by any means, but perhaps not suited to a star like Pavlich, and his success to date could be better attributed to playing on second or third best opposition forwards.

Pavlich took advantage of being faster than Craig, and was almost always in front. You can't kick 4 goals without beating your defender.

Watching the game live gave a very distinct impression that LRT was much needed in defence as well as in the ruck.

I sincerely doubt that he would have been BOG last week had he been playing Tarrant.

He has been very flat lately & didnt see too much of him last night. Pavlich was too strong & also had the height on bolts. LRT did an excellent job in the ruck but by all means was needed down back.

[satchmopugdog]

There's not many people who can beat Pavlich. B2 was in the unenviable position of being one on one with Pavlich and got beaten,whereas whenever Barry Hall went for the ball there were two Anchor defenders present.

[NMWBloods]

I thought he did okay on Pavlich. Some of the delivery to him was pretty unstoppable.

[liz]

I'm with NMW on this. Bolton was comprehensively outpointed by Pavlich early in the game while his (Bolton's) team mates looked like they were just out for a stroll in the park.

But after that he did a pretty decent job on a top quality player. Even though Pavlich kicked two goals in the third term, only one of those was directly down to beating Bolton. And when Pavlich was working up the ground, Bolton spoiled consistently well.

[Nico]

I thought Bolton was OK. Freo only kicked 9 and Pavlich only had 12 possessions. 4 goals yes, but didn't create much as Bolton was ultra competitive on the ground.

[ScottH]

Yep, Bolton was OK, as the 3 previous posts said, given how hard it is to play against Pavlich.

Bolton certainly wasn't beaten badly.

[Big Al]

Pavlich is an absolute gun and when on fire no defender can stop him. Bolton did ok on him.

[motorace_182]

Absolute Bull@@@@. Bolton was one of our better players last night. With the amount of quality ball coming his way Pav was always going to get a few grabs. But around the ground, Bolton owned him! Time and time again he beat him in a 1 on 1 despite being caught behind. Someone put a rocket up Leo barrys ass and show him how to defend, the guy was a joke last night.
If it wasnt for Bolton we would have been out of it by half time.

[punter257]

yeah i thought bolts did a pretty good job - he towelled up pavlich last season and was great last night too even though he got 4 majors

[DST]

All 4 of the Pav's goals came in two bursts of 2 minutes each.

The rest of the night, Bolton did very well on him. Especially when Pav tried to push further up the field.

As far as I am concerned, last night showed just how valuable Bolton is to our set-up as it allowed us to use LRT in the ruck, meant Barry could play off a inexperienced opponent and we never had to resort to pushing back Goodes into defence.

DST

[goswannie14]

Yeah, I too reckon B2 did a pretty good job. Once the supply wasn't coming in as well, he beat Pav hands down.

[Bleed Red Blood]

He played really well. Lots of drive from defense.

[The Undertaker]

Craig Bolton was ok,it was more of a case of Pavlich just being too good.

[katie-scarlett]

Originally posted by The Undertaker
Craig Bolton was ok,it was more of a case of Pavlich just being too good.

I think that was the case too.
Still love Craig's work, love seeing him play but he was just simply outrun by Pav.