Carlton coach Brendon Bolton always had the drive to succeed in AFL

CARLTON is connected again. Connected to modern trends, to each other and most of all, to its energised coach. Those close to Brendon Bolton reveal what makes him special.

Carlton coach Brendon Bolton.

LYNDON Bolton brought the car to a stop outside his son’s school in northeast Tasmania.

The Vietnam vet was on his way to a job he hated — hardware store manager — when he turned to a young Brendon Bolton.

“I said, ‘One thing, Brendon. Whatever you do in life, make sure that you find a job that you love’,” Bolton Sr recalled this week.

The small country kid with the big city ambition would find two — teaching and coaching — and a two-decade dedication to both is transforming a fallen giant of the AFL.

Carlton is connected again. Connected to modern trends, to each other and most of all, to its energised coach.

Bolton, 37, has administered the Blues with football’s wonder drug — spirit — and they’re thriving.

The players were hit between the eyes from day one of a pre-season they say pushed them to their limits.

An unprecented amount of game plan study, via cutting-edge editing software, meant their brains worked as hard as their biceps.

There were more than a few people close to Bolton concerned about his work-life balance as he ripped into a job he’d been building towards nearly half his life.

But one thing you quickly learn about the Blues’ newest senior coach is that he has never been one to do things by halves.

THE BEGINNING

The son of Lyndon and Dianne, and brother of Jeanna, Bolton grew up on a hobby farm in Pipers River - a tiny town between Bridport and George Town - mad on footy, the outdoors, the thirst for knowledge and an appetite for hard work.

“He’s either stopped dead or flat-out. He’s been like that all his life,” Bolton Sr said.

“You could see the determination he had. He was never very big, but in all sports he’d just grit his teeth and go until he stopped. He’d always go through the pain barrier.

“Even at school. He had a tutor, a retired teacher, who taught him a lot of English. He used to go over there and he loved the reading and the history.”

The father-son relationship was perhaps a little different to most. Dad didn’t show a lot of emotion; a consequence of the demons he fought after serving in Vietnam. Kids, meanwhile, are naturally inquisitive.

“I had a bit of a rough time when I came home and I had to quit work. My nerves went on me and I’ve been on the TPI (special rate disability pension) for about 25 years,” Bolton Sr said.

“It has affected me pretty hard. I guess he saw that, but I think he understands what it was. I’ve never really opened up about it to family.”

Brendon Bolton immediately made his mark at the start of Carlton’s pre-season. Picture: Colleen Petch

LEARNING ON THE JOB

Bolton could play football. In his mid-teens he played for a Tassie Mariners side coached by current Hawthorn football manager Chris Fagan, a relationship that became fruitful years later.

At 19 he won the Darrel Baldock medal for best on ground for the undefeated North Launceston in the Tasmanian State Football League grand final.

At 24 he was named captain-coach of North Hobart and led them to a flag while winning the Horrie Gorringe Medal for league’s best player.

After an achilles problem ended his playing career, Bolton took the reins as Tassie Devils coach in the VFL in 2006 and then at Clarence in 2008.

While teaching physical education at Rosetta High School in Hobart’s northern suburbs, he spent some of 2007 studying teaching in the UK.

“We only had him for a year,” Clarence chief executive Richard Mulligan said.

“He made it really clear his ambition was to get into the AFL and it was really evident he was a long way ahead of where local footy was when he was coaching us.

“His techniques were really quite progressive and different. He had us paint a very large oval on the clubroom floors and he would spend lots of time with the players indoors educating them on the structures he wanted.

“But part of the deal was that we sent him to Melbourne to gain experience with an AFL club and to be brought up to date with contemporary training practices.”

Brendon Bolton was 19 when best afield in North Launceston’s grand final win in the Tasmanian State Football League.

That club was Hawthorn — there was the Chris Fagan connection, and Fagan’s brother Grant had also coached Clarence.

“The Hawks were reasonably impressed because they rang him back not much later and offered him the (coaching) job at Box Hill,” Mulligan said.

“I wasn’t surprised. He’s a pretty smart guy, ‘Bolts’, and he was all about teaching rather than being a traditional-style coach.”

At Box Hill in 2009-10, Bolton created an environment in which senior-listed Hawks actually enjoyed playing. At Hawthorn in 2014, he got his big break when Alastair Clarkson was hospitalised with Guillan-Barre syndrome.

He’s a passionate presenter, he’s smart, he thinks things through really well, but his delivery and engagement is pretty special.

- David Parkin

Largely unknown outside the inner AFL industry, the football world met a bubbly, happy-go-lucky jack-in-the-box who went undefeated in his five games in charge.

“He’s very ambitious,” former Hawk star Brad Sewell said this week.

“He was really clear with his expectations and what he wouldn’t accept. Because he had such a good relationship with the players he didn’t have to give a spray so much, it was more, ‘I’m just disappointed’, which can be more cutting.”

At least one other highly-decorated senior Hawk told confidants he wasn’t sure Bolton had the “sting” in the tail. Carlton people will tell you he very much does.

It had been a 13-year coaching apprenticeship that had allowed Bolton to make mistakes and abandoned ideas. By August, 2015, and his appointment as Carlton coach, he knew what worked and what didn’t.

Bolton coaching the Tassie Devils in the VFL.

BOLT TO THE BLUES

“What you’re seeing is the difference between a coach (Mick Malthouse) who probably didn’t have the real modern requirements and system versus a guy who is razor sharp in terms of time spent. And there has been a lot of time spent,” a Carlton source said.

Cyclone Bolton hit the Blues on the first day of pre-season. Out: Chuckling Hawks assistant. In: Straight-shooter, relationship-builder, educator.

“I think he was conscious that a certain perception of him was out there having been painted by the media,” one Blues staff member said.

“But now that’s he’s in the chair and owns it, he creates his own legacy.”

That legacy started with the players sitting for hour after hour in the theatrette as Bolton poured over a game plan he believed could breath new life into the Blues.

“Because we had Mick, who took the job for the wrong reasons and there wasn’t much energy there, the level of time we’ve spent has gone through the roof,” a club insider said.

“When you’re outside on the track you’ve got limited time, but Bolts would squeeze the phys-edders and say, ‘Nope, we’re out here a bit longer. We’re not getting it right so we’ll keep going’.

“The boys are going to get a bit of flow now because, to be frank, Darth Vader has walked out the door. We’re also pretty healthy at the moment and got some really good players in from other teams.”

Carlton coach Brendon Bolton has a chat with a Blues fan.

Bolton is an advocate of two-way feedback and is regularly gets it from the Blues leadership group, who asked him pre-Christmas to start talking about things outside football. This is creating bonds.

Elsewhere, office staff were invited to take part in pre-season training sessions, a monthly all-of-club lunch was in full-swing and club legends were invited back to address the players.

Former AFL coach David Parkin this week said Bolton was “not only a team coach, but a club coach”.

“He’s got all the ingredients. He’s a passionate presenter, he’s smart, he thinks things through really well, but his delivery and engagement is pretty special,” Parkin said.

Internally, this was already a different club, but Blues chiefs received spectacular validation at the club’s season launch on March 1.

He made it really clear his ambition was to get into the AFL and it was really evident he was a long way ahead of where local footy was.

- Clarence CEO Richard Mulligan

The commercial whizzes had come up with a new inner sanctum initiative dubbed “The Coach’s Club”, but there were more than a few anxious about how the $1100 package would be received.

However, nearly 90 paid up, joining the new coach on stage at Crown palladium for a photo.

“I was a little bit nervous walking up here,” Bolton told the audience.

“But I was probably more nervous when they talked about the coaches club — ‘Up you come for $1100’. I thought, ‘Is anyone going to actually come and pay $1100 to sit and meet me?’.

“But I felt a little bit more calm when my wife said, ‘Easy, I’ll pay the $1100 because I haven’t seen you or had dinner with you for the last six months’.”

Bolton hugs Kade Simpson after Carlton’s win over Port Adelaide last week. Picture: Getty Images

FAMILY

Bolton’s rock is his wife Louisa. They and their children Ned, 4, and Rosie, 2, live in Brighton.

After initial concerns from Carlton chief executive Steven Trigg and others over his work-life balance, Bolton has found the sweet spot.

He arrives at work just after 7am in his club-issued Hyundai Santa Fe, but tries to avoid staying late.

“The first two hours when I arrive home is important for me because little Ned and Rosie come up with a big smile on their face and I’m still their dad ... so I give them a bath and read a story,” Bolton told SEN.

“I always dedicate that first two hours to family.

“I make sure it’s quality time when I’m there. Because if I’m there and I’m not invested that’s not the right way and it’s not fair.”

Bolton’s sanctuary remains the farm in Pipers River.

“The first thing he says when he gets home is, ‘Are we having roast lamb and is the boat ready?’,” Bolton Sr said.

Father and son and mates go trout fishing on Woods Lake, tuna fishing down south and Bolton doesn’t mind scuba diving for crayfish down the east coast.

“We’re very, very proud of him,” Bolton Sr said. “We’ve stayed in the back stalls quite a bit, just to let him do his thing. I never, ever tried to tell him anything. He has virtually done it all himself.

“I just said ‘Do the best you can’.”