Bolton’s perpetual motion inspires us
SCOTT Bolton has been an unsung hero for us this year but his efforts certainly haven’t gone unnoticed in the inner sanctum.
With Matt Scott out for the rest of the year, his experience and dependability up front has been enormous in putting us in a reasonably good position heading into the second half of the year.
He’s averaging 135 metres a game and I read during the week that he had more run metres at halftime than Bulldogs starting props James Graham and Aiden Tolman combined in our win in Sydney last week.
I’ve said in other weeks how important he has been for us, and he continued to show that last Thursday.
He’s a real leader within our forward pack and has had a big challenge this year after losing Matt Scott early in the season.
Cronulla tonight will be a huge challenge – they are a team in form and playing with a lot of confidence.
Fellow Townsville boy Valentine Holmes’ move to fullback has made them a more dangerous team and he’s a guy who we will have to try and contain.
He gets his opportunities when forwards like Andrew Fifita and Paul Gallen roll down the field.
The Bulldogs win has given the guys a lot of confidence. We defended well, which had been a problem area for us in previous weeks. It’s always spoken about not us not being able to score points without Johnathan Thurston in the team, so to be able to do that and defend well was very pleasing.
I was more on the ball last week than I was the last few weeks without him, last week was my responsibility and I was more than happy to do it.
It was a big help to have Lachlan Coote and Jake Granville back and it definitely helped me with a lot of the organising.
To be able to train with both of them during the week made a huge difference.
We have a bye next weekend so it would be good to go into it with two wins in a row away from home.