Shai Bolton didn’t plan it this way, but if he could have he would have.
It’s his dream Dreamtime. On Saturday night, at Dreamtime at the ’G, it will be his 100th game. It will be a packed house ... and there will also be a big crowd at the MCG. Bolton’s home will be full of family.
Marlion Pickett, Shai Bolton and Xavier Clarke in the lead-up to the Dreamtime game.Credit: Chris Hopkins
“It’s unreal. I didn’t think I would play my 100th in Dreamtime ever. I think I might have only missed one Dreamtime game. I love it. Special moment for me and my family,” Bolton said.
“All of my mob will be over, which will be good. I think they are all staying at my place. Like sardines up my arse. Nah, Mum is at a motel, the others we will squeeze into my place.
“It’s good. I feel like I am at home when all my mob’s there. It’s how it used to be when I was back in WA. I feel like I play better when my family’s there because it makes me feel like I’m at home back in WA. So, I just put up the family. I love it.”
Bolton returned to form a couple of weeks ago. He, like his club, was close to playing well without actually playing that well. That has changed.
‘They watch a lot of Shai, Shai’s highlights. Always watching Shai.’
Marlion Pickett on his two oldest boys.
“I think we have just started playing our way. Bit freer ... my teammates help me out,” Bolton said. “When I get in the right positions hopefully they use me and just play from there. Just play fun and play chaos football.”
Bolton and Marlion Pickett are close. Both Noongar men, they didn’t know one another before Richmond, but now they connect. Largely it is through being at Richmond where all the Indigenous players and Xavier Clarke, a Larrakia man and assistant coach, are all close. But partly, it is because of Pickett’s kids. They don’t shut up about Shai.
Pickett has four kids and his eldest two boys, Marlion jnr, who is 13, and Lattrell, 11, play together in the under 13s. They play a bit like Dad, but want to play like Shai. They watch his highlights, so there is no shortage of clips. His boys go OK.
“They could be better than me,” Pickett said. “The older one has got the aggression and speed, the younger one’s got skill, yeah, good around goals. They watch a lot of Shai, Shai’s highlights. Always watching Shai,” he said.
Richmond’s Shai Bolton has a big highlights reel. including this mark from round one.Credit: The AFL / Twitter
“I’m pretty relaxed [on the sidelines]. I just kind of tell them to work on their work ethic up and back from forward 50.”
The connections between the Indigenous players at Richmond are tight but they also weave between the two clubs playing on Saturday night. Dean Rioli, who is on the Essendon board, is the cousin of Maurice Rioli jnr and Daniel Rioli. He also coaches Marlion’s wife Jess at Moonee Valley. She, too, is a handy player.
“It’s a footy weekend,” Pickett said. “She’s pretty good. She’s around the mark. Pretty tough, just gets back up again.”
Their daughter isn’t playing footy yet but is a talented athlete. She’s almost quicker than her older brothers and kicks left foot. She’s eight.
Richmond are quietly keeping a keen eye on Marlion’s mounting games tally.
He’s at 66 (unbidden, a senior Richmond figure reflexively recited the stat). He’ll probably get to 100 games any way, but you sense the club will make absolutely sure there’s no way he doesn’t get to that father-son threshold milestone.
Club within a club
It’s always hot in Xavier Clarke’s office. Coming from Darwin, he likes it that way, with the heat cranked up high. It draws in the Tiwi Islanders Maurice Rioli jnr and his nephew Daniel, and the fellas from southern WA, Pickett and Bolton. The heat is one thing, but the warmth is more than the chugging blasts of hot air from the split system. They’d be hanging out in X’s office anyway. Though the heat does help.
“Most of the boys end up in this room for lunchtime, most of the time having a yarn and a chat and joking around,” Clarke said.
“We are all pretty tight. We basically all know each other’s struggles. It [Richmond] feels safe. It’s like a safety connection that we have. If we need to get something off our chest, we go to the brothers first. We all had to relocate, so you know, we’re not at home.”
It sort of explains how for Richmond the idea of the Indigenous celebration that the Dreamtime game embraces is more intrinsically a daily part of the club than an annual match. There is the handful of Indigenous players and Clarke as coach, but also the Indigenous Institute upstairs at Punt Road and the Melbourne Indigenous Transition School that operates through the club. Daily, there are many Indigenous faces walking through and around the club.
Pickett recalled when he made the move to Melbourne from Perth. Given a chance by the club through the mid-year draft, he had more history than most players - a father of four kids, he had also spent time in jail. He came alone, without his family, at first.
“I rocked up to Melbourne Airport and all the Indigenous boys were there. X [Clarke] picked me up, we all went out for a feed. So, it was pretty cool just to see the Indigenous boys and the connection and what-not straight away. It’s that connection you build, we are together every day. Kinda just brothers,” Pickett said.
Clarke arrived at Richmond at the same time as Bolton and former Tiger, now Geelong premiership player, Tyson Stengle. He was flown down from Darwin and the club put the three of them up in an apartment up near the MCG.
“I hardly knew they were there because they wouldn’t talk,” Clarke said “He [Bolton] talks a little bit more now.”
“Not much,” Bolton smiled.
Bolton’s 2021 mark of the year.Credit: AFL Photos
Clarke, Pickett said, was like the big brother. He’s the forwards coach and so a coach for all the team, but the Indigenous players gravitate to him.
Clarke designed the jumper this year for the Tigers’ Dreamtime game. He, too, will have a house full this weekend. His brother Raph is coming with his kids, and his sister and her partner will be over with their six kids under the age of 10.
He is proud of his place in the game and in the club. He is very proud of his Indigenous culture. But a part of him would also rather that he be thought of as a coach, not an “Indigenous coach”. He is a coach who is Indigenous and he coaches all players, and it is an understandable comment. But it is also an inescapable fact that until recently Indigenous coaches couldn’t get much of a toehold in the AFL. Now with him at the Tigers, Trav Varcoe at the Bulldogs and Nev Jetta at Collingwood, the numbers of Indigenous ex-players moving into AFL coaching are growing pleasingly.
The handbrake is off
Bolton won mark of the year in 2021. Last year, he was a finalist for goal of the year. As a judge of highlight-reel moments he’s as good as any.
He thinks Will Ashcroft has goal of the year already won this year, nudging out Charlie Cameron and Brodie Mihocek (at least after nine rounds).
“I reckon Ashcroft [is the pick of the three]. It reminded me a bit of Daniel Wells. I don’t reckon anyone is gonna beat that,” Bolton said.
Did Charlie Cameron mean to kick his goal?
“Yeah,” all three men, Bolton, Pickett and Clarke, jump in as one.
Pickett: “Nah, he meant that for sure.”
Bolton: “You could just tell the way he moved, he knew what he was doing ...”
Clarke: “There’s still time, Shai might pull one out of the hat. And Marlion had 15 attempts for mark of the year last week and didn’t get any, so he’s gotta get one at some stage.”
Damien Hardwick encourages it. Flying for high marks, trying to kick goal of the year. It’s expressive, but it’s also reflective of when Richmond play their best. That freedom is one of the things that was missing in the early season losses (along with some key players).
“I think there was an element of playing with the handbrake on. Just not going, it sounds ridiculous, but we were doing a lot right,” Clarke said. “I think we needed the West Coast game to be able to just get back to playing our way and that really helped us with the Geelong game.”
Bolton and Pickett nodded. The handbrake is off.
For Bolton, in his 100th game in Dreamtime Game in front of his family, it is a dream.
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