AFL
8 months ago
Richmond to select Balta despite pending sentencing
By SEN
Richmond’s Noah Balta has reportedly been selected to play in the club's Saturday night clash with the Gold Coast Suns.
The 25-year-old is facing a sentence-hearing in five days time after pleading guilty for an attack on another man outside the Mulwala Water Ski club in December last year.
Balta is facing up to five years in jail.
Despite the upcoming sentencing, SEN’s Tom Morris has confirmed that the Tigers will go ahead with Balta in the line up.
Last month CCTV footage of the Richmond player's alleged assault was made public.
Vision played in court showed Balta run towards his victim, knock him to the ground before delivering repeated blows to his head.
In March, prosecutors telling a court that the victim of the assault - Thomas Washbrook - was lucky to be alive.
Richmond handed Balta a six-week in-club suspension which meant he missed two pre-season games and the opening four rounds.
He was left out of the Gather Round team for Round 5.
After the CCTV was released many called for an extension to Balta's suspension which was rejected by both Richmond and the AFL who believe he has been punished enough.
“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," Adem Yze said on Wednesday.
“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.
“He’s served his suspension, we went really hard in doing so and he’s been dealing with that for three months.
“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.”
