John Elliott says there’s no point sacking Brendon Bolton mid-season

Carlton’s longest serving president John Elliott says Brendon Bolton should be given until the end of the year to resurrect the side’s fortunes but should ultimately be judged on wins.

Blues coach Brendon Bolton has won just one game this season. Picture: Getty Images

Carlton’s longest serving president says the Blues have nothing to gain by sacking Brendon Bolton mid-season.

John Elliott said Bolton should be given until the end of the year, at a minimum, to resurrect the side’s fortunes.

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“There’s no point sacking a coach in the middle of the season. Bolton should be given the season and the players seem to like him as a person and as a coach,” Elliott said.

“But he’s got to win some games this year. He won’t be there next year if he doesn’t win some games, that’s for sure.”

Bolton enters Sunday’s clash against St Kilda at Marvel Stadium with just one win this season and pressure mounting to keep his job.

Elliott led the club from 1983-2002 and won two premierships alongside coaches Robert Walls (1987) and David Parkin (1995).

“I fired Parkin because the players were getting sick of him in 1985,” Elliott said.

“We brought in Walls and we won a premiership in ’87, but I brought Parkin back, you see. He was the best coach we had at Carlton in my day. He was very, very good.”

Carlton coach Brendon Bolton is under pressure to win more games. Picture: Phil Hillyard

Bolton has pointed to the fact the Blues have been competitive in seven of their nine games (they have lost five by less than 19 points), but Elliott said using that as a positive was a sign of the times.

“My view at Carlton was always, ‘If we lose, we have played badly’. We like to win,” Elliott said.

“I think they’ve got a few good players, maybe half a dozen, but then it falls away a bit.

“Nobody ever wanted to leave Carlton and the problem in recent years is we’ve got blokes who’ve gone to Geelong, Adelaide and Richmond.”

Bolton was confident his side would respond against the Saints.

“Our pressure, by and large in games, has kept us there, but we’ve had two horrible outliers that are far off the mark of what we expect from each other and what we know we can do,” Bolton said.

“So we’d expect a response this week. It’s a learning skill for guys who haven’t had huge exposure — over 50-100 games — to learn the mindset required. That’s why some players take a bit of time.

“We’re pushing it strongly, we’re not accepting of it and we’re driving those standards high, but there’s some inconsistencies with that.”

Originally published as John Elliott says there’s no point sacking Brendon Bolton mid-season