Brendon Bolton opens up about his exit from Carlton and the stress of coaching in the AFL
Brendon Bolton was playing the long game at Carlton. However, he never got the chance to enjoy the rewards. Now, in his first major interview since being sacked, he looks back on his time at the Blues.
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Brendon Bolton has admitted he might have over-coached his players in his final months in charge at Carlton.
The Carlton coach was moved on by the Blues in June to end his reign of three and a half years. He was replaced by David Teague.
Speaking for the first time in depth about his sacking, Bolton admitted the workload can take a savage toll on senior AFL coaches.
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His Carlton exit came in a hellish year in which his father died within 11 weeks of being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Bolton, who has returned to Hawthorn as its coaching director, admitted he wonders if playing the long game cost him his job rather than bringing in more senior players and using available salary cap space.
Speaking in an interview with Alister Nicholson to be broadcast on Sunday on ABC Grandstand, he said he could have over-coached the team and been too detail-oriented in his final weeks.
“I think when it’s all said and done the players all re-signed. That says it was a place where they wanted to be,” Bolton said.
“But my default position is to work harder and with more detail and maybe that is a layer (of the sacking). So that builds pressure. When we took (that pressure) off and the change happened, I was pleased to see some of the boys get some reward in the back end of the year.
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing and you go away and reflect and maybe we played the long term game for too long. Some short-term decisions around bringing some more men in early may have helped.
“We got the salary cap back on track and you lose games by one or two goals and you have money sitting there, but what I can sleep comfortably with at night is we made decisions in the best interests of the Carlton footy club.
“I would love to have been able to see it through but I understand the nature of coaching when pressure builds on footy clubs.”
Bolton believes the AFL must take seriously the toll on senior coaches as the league’s new mental health boss assesses the fallout from a wave of sackings and mental health battles.
Bolton doesn’t want to be the poster boy for stress in AFL coaching but said it had been a turbulent time after his sacking.
“It becomes your lifestyle. It’s not your job, it’s your way of being. I had gone from working 2000 hours to zero so that’s a shock, it’s a bit of a numb feeling there,” he said.
“And going through that there is a lot of public scrutiny
“On top of that my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he passed away within 11 weeks in that period, so it was a tough time, but a time where you have to reflect and gather your thoughts and move forward.
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“It’s really important we do understand the magnitude of the caper at senior level and we do support senior coaches. You could work, if you had a few games interstate, you could work 20 days straight in the month and not really realise it and not be as present as you should be with your family and that’s a little bit of a worry. We need to work out how to have good balance.
“Coaches, like players, are all human. They have got 50 players who they treat like sons, and they are really invested in those players and on top of that they have 15 coaches who they are invested in and their broader staff.
“All of a sudden coaches take on 100 people let alone their family and themselves. It’s incredibly rewarding and you have a lot of gratitude to have the position, but they also have to make sure they look after themselves.”
Originally published as Brendon Bolton opens up about his exit from Carlton and the stress of coaching in the AFL