Former Richmond assistant coach Justin Leppitsch admits he was shocked to learn just how much of an influence Ralph Carr has on his clients.
The music mogul has a small stable of AFL players within his management enterprise including Tigers superstar Dustin Martin and fellow triple premiership player Daniel Rioli.
Also on the books is Mabior Chol, Geelong’s Quinton Narkle and current Tigers darling Shai Bolton, who is attracting plenty of media attention with his contract up at the conclusion of this season.
Rival clubs are showing interest in the 22-year-old Western Australian talent and his signature promises to be a prized possession for whoever lands it.
Leppitsch, who worked closely with Bolton between 2017 and 2020, believes the decision - surprisingly to him - is in very good hands with his manager Carr.
“I was talking to (Richmond list manager) Blair Hartley and I asked him about player managers and do they help or hinder the player,” Leppitsch said on SEN’s Whateley.
“Are they good to say, ‘the coach says you still have to work on A,B and C and you’ll get a bigger contract’, or so on and so forth.
“I asked, ‘who’s the best at that type of thing?’, and he said, ‘you’d be very surprised but it’s Ralph Carr’. That did shock me at the time.
“We spoke about it and it shocked you to think that Ralph Carr is the one that actually sits his players down and says, ‘mate, do the hard work, get it right and I’ll get you the contract’.
“It’s funny that Shai has had that move to Ralph as well. Dustin was his one and only for a long period of time and now Mabior Chol has jumped on board as well.
“You need that as an influence around you, you need to have your most important influences giving you the right advice.
“That could be really important in Shai’s development to have someone around him that gives him that sort of advice.”
Having spent four seasons witnessing first-hand how Bolton has developed his game from a flashy small forward into a prime-moving midfielder who kicks goals, Leppitsch has been somewhat taken aback by what he’s seen.
He now rates Bolton as a player who possesses everything required to flourish in the modern game.
“What a player he’s becoming,” he added.
“He’s the sort of player that you almost need a state-of-the-art HD TV to see him change direction because it’s so fast that it’s like, ‘what just happened right there?’
“You slow it down and realise the mechanics of his movement is quite amazing. At times he looks off balance but can still keep his feet and change direction, settle and then kick a goal. It’s like his arms and legs don’t belong to his body.
“I don’t know how he puts it all together but he’s an amazing player. His growth as a player is huge.
“From someone who saw him as a young player in the game, there’s no way you’d expect his growth to be where it’s at. He always had the offensive talent but now combination-wise he’s got everything.”
Leppitsch also commented on the link between Hawthorn’s Tom Mitchell and the Tigers, saying he simply cannot see the Brownlow Medallist ending up in the yellow and black.
The three-time Brisbane Lions premiership defender struggled to identify many clubs that would line up well for the accumulating on-baller.
“I can’t see it, but unless they change (their game style),” he said of the Richmond link.
“They’re the kings of changing their game style. Their handballs average three metres going forward, not one metre going back, which is often what Tom Mitchell does.
“It would be a complete change in game style if they did that.
“Looking at the sorts of teams if this is the case, it would have to be someone mid-pack going up the ladder. I don’t think the top teams could afford him, per se, as a player.
“The Bulldogs have already done what they did with Adam Treloar, they’ve got a stacked midfield.
“Melbourne would be happy, Geelong as well, but every team in the middle - and he wants to stay in Melbourne - you go from Brisbane, Port, Sydney, West Coast.
“Then you’ve got Richmond and Essendon eight and nine, then it goes GWS and Fremantle. So every team in that middle rung is interstate apart form Richmond and Essendon which I think play a more dynamic game style and their midfield is set.
“So it’s going to be interesting if that’s where he wants to go. Difficult getting straight into a top team, but getting into a mid-pack team on the way up, most of them are interstate.
“Probably the one that stands out to me are the Giants who need the experience, have got draft capital and don’t need any more young kids… but he won’t want to go back to Sydney.
“It will be interesting to watch this space, so that’s probably where you think maybe it won’t happen.”