AFL 2025: Noah Balta is available for senior selection this week, says coach Adem Yze

Richmond coach Adem Yze has declared his stance on playing Noah Balta ahead of his sentencing for assault next week.

Richmond coach Adem Yze has declared charged defender Noah Balta available for senior selection, saying the club has “punished him enough”.

Balta has served the four-match suspension handed down by the club after he was charged with assault in January. The 25-year-old has pleaded guilty and will face sentencing in Albury Local Court on April 22.

The Tigers have come under fierce scrutiny for their stance on Balta after the footage of his assault was made public and the potential for him to play before he is sentenced.

Yze refused to confirm whether Balta would play against Gold Coast at Marvel Stadium on Saturday night but said he had “served that sentence”.

“He’s a Richmond man, we’ve punished him enough, right now it’s around performance and if he trains well he’ll be available for selection,” Yze said.

“We’ve got our main session today and I feel a little bit awkward trying to predict our team before a main session.

“He’s available to play this weekend, he got through what he needed to get through, he’ll get through training today and then as a match committee we’ll go through that later today.

“Unless ‘Dimma’ (Damien Hardwick) is happy to tell us who’s playing for Gold Coast this weekend, I am not going to divulge who we’re going to put in our team today before we go through selection and before we need to.

“He will be available and as I said if he gets through training today, we’ll have that discussion later this afternoon as a match committee.”

CCTV of Noah Balta assaulting a man outside a Mulwala club. Picture: Supplied.

Balta played for Richmond’s VFL side in a match against the Under-18 AFL Academy on Sunday to build match fitness.

Yze noted how Balta sat out of an extra week to build conditioning and said he was itching to “earn the respect back”.

“He’s served his suspension, we went really hard in doing so and he’s been dealing with that for three months,” he said.

“He missed another game of footy, we suspended him for four (home and away games) and now he’s had five weeks out – we’ve got to make sure we’re looking after the player as well.

“As I have said all along, that’s been a discussion we had with the AFL at the start of this process.

“He’s been working on himself and he can’t wait to try and earn the respect back of not only us as a club and his teammates but our supporters and the AFL community.”

Noah Balta engages with Ben Millar at training on Wednesday. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Noah Balta at training on Wednesday. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)

Yze said Richmond’s six-week ban – which included two pre-season matches – was not only to sanction Balta but to set the standard to its young players.

“He pleaded guilty by the fact he told us what had happened, that’s why we went hard,” he said.

“We’ve got young players on our list who needed to understand what he did was wrong, that’s why we went really hard, right now he’s served that sentence.

“Now it’s around performance, on the weekend it was about getting a game under his belt and he needed to warrant playing.

“We’ve got to go through that today, whether he played well enough to play AFL footy and we’ve got a big game against a quality team that hasn’t lost a game of footy.

“We’ve got to pick our team to put on a good performance and one we’re proud of.”

Originally published as AFL 2025: Noah Balta is available for senior selection this week, says coach Adem Yze