Richmond coach Adem Yze says club will manage remorseful Noah Balta’s nighttime curfew after assault sentencing

The day after his star defender was issued with a night time curfew as part of sentence for assault Richmond coach Adem Yze responded.

Richmond coach Adem Yze says remorseful defender Noah Balta wants to “repay the club’s faith” in the wake of his sentencing for assault but won’t play this weekend as he and the club deal with the fallout.

On Tuesday Balta was handed a 10pm-6am curfew until July 22 and a ban on interstate travel as well as being convicted and fined for assaulting a man outside a regional NSW venue last year.

The curfew means the 25-year-old can’t play in Thursday’s Anzac Day eve clash with Melbourne but he won’t play in the VFL match earlier in the day either and was absent from the club after a “tough day” which included attending court in Albury.

The Tigers did consider challenging the curfew but before shutting down questions about Balta, who made his AFL return last weekend, Yze said the continuation of the case would have been “too hard” on the player and the club.

“You go through those discussions, all of those would have happened yesterday, but to go through an appeal process would be almost giving him the license to get back in and that footy was more relevant than the sanction,” he said.

Noah Balta arrives at Albury Court for sentencing over the assault of a man in December. Picture: David Geraghty

“He knew he did wrong and he was going to be punished, to go through that for another six weeks, it would have been too hard not only on him but our footy club and our playing group.

“We accept the decision and we move on.”

Yze said Balta must earn back the trust of coaches and teammates but had their support.

“Now it’s about getting him back amongst the group and giving him the opportunity to repay the faith we’ve shown in him,” he said.

“As I said, it was a tough day yesterday, we’ll move on.

“We were obviously prepared for anything, you go through a case like that and we were prepared he was going to be sanctioned.

“Dealing with that (the curfew) is part of it, he was really remorseful, we knew he was going to be punished, we went through that process and it’s one little element to it.

“We’ll have to play around with that and deal with that as a club but at the same time, we have to wrap our arms around him and help him through this.”

Noah Balta and Adem Yze after last weekend’s win over the Gold Coast Suns. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Yze is confident restricted availability has no impact on his ability as a coach and referenced the similarity to managing players with a history of injuries.

“It doesn’t, we get an opportunity, we have a first-gamer this week, Campbell Gray is going to play and it’s an exciting time for our footy club,” he said.

“You go through that (change), whether it’s injury or what Noah is going through, as a coach you deal with those things no matter what.

“We’ve accepted the decision, we will set a plan for him, understanding which games he won’t play and that’s OK, that’s all part of the game.

Yze has consistently reinforced his stance on Balta since the details of his assault emerged in January.

He doubled down on Wednesday, saying he had “no doubt” the way Richmond has handled the situation has been done correctly.

“We set a plan, we went really hard from day one with our sanction, we worked with the AFL for that sanction,” he said.

“It was always going to be, depending on what came out of the court case, on how we moved forward and we’re doing that.

“To be fair, that’s about six questions I have answered on Noah, our job right now, he’s been sanctioned, we’ve got to support him from now moving forward.”

Originally published as Richmond coach Adem Yze says club will manage remorseful Noah Balta’s nighttime curfew after assault sentencing