Richmond coach Adem Yze has labeled the club's decision not to name defender Noah Balta for their Round 5 matchup with Fremantle as a football call.
Balta has served a four-game suspension after an incident late last year that has since seen the tall Tiger plead guilty to assault. Balta's front court in March but saw his case adjourned until April 22, falling between Richmond's Round 6 and 7 games against Gold Coast and Melbourne respectively.
Having been unable to play at any level since the incident, Richmond decided against naming Balta for the first game he's been made available for, with Yze flagging concerns around relying on the 25-year-old against Fremantle's star forwards.
"The non-selection is just based around footy," Yze said of the selection decision.
"It's pretty tough to go into an AFL game without any footy at all. It was just unfortunate we weren't able to play him in the VFL beforehand.
"This is our first opportunity to play him at any level. He would've been playing on some really good forwards, and to do that without playing any footy at all would just be too hard for the kid.
"He'll go and play a game of footy this weekend and will be available the week after.
"We've obviously disciplined him. He's copped a fair whack for that and has been dealing with that for three months. It's just a performance decision."
Balta will suit up for Richmond's VFL side in Sunday's showcase game against the U18 AFL Academy, being one of just six AFL-listed Tigers named for the game at RSEA Park.
Having spoken on "selection integrity" in recent weeks as top 10 draft pick Josh Smillie made his return through the VFL instead of an immediate AFL debut, Yze said the standards are the same for the club's more senior figures.
"He's going to have to warrant selection," Yze said of Balta's Round 6 selection chances.
"Similar to Josh Smillie. He played VFL footy and got some minutes under his belt and will play another game this weekend. If he's not playing well enough he doesn't deserve selection, and Noah will be exactly the same.
"We're always going to have that selection integrity. If he plays well enough then we'll talk about that next week."
Richmond and Fremantle will go head to head at Barossa Park on Sunday at 12:05pm local time.
