Dusty given time to visit deported dadHerald-Sun
14 April 2016RICHMOND coach Damien Hardwick says the club will continue to support Dustin Martin’s trips to New Zealand to visit his deported father.
Hardwick said the star midfielder was experiencing a testing time after his father, Shane, had his visa cancelled due to character assessments on the eve of the season.
Hardwick said Martin, 24, was resilient enough to handle the difficult situation.
“It is a challenging time but Dustin is obviously very close to his dad and we will continue to give him some time with his dad overseas — obviously he’s in New Zealand at the moment,” Hardwick said.
“All Dustin can do is let his football (do the talking and) play well on the weekends and his personal life will take care of itself.
“Dustin is very resilient with this type of thing. He has matured incredibly over the time we have had him at the football club.
“We are very proud of him and he has had a pretty good season thus far. Probably a little bit down last week but he is a good player.”
Hardwick said there was no plan to ease back Martin’s football commitments at this stage.
“We monitor all of our players with regard to their physical and mental wellbeing and Dustin is no different to that, so we will monitor him according to those indicators that we have,” he said.
The Tigers today flew to Perth to take on West Coast at Subiaco Oval tomorrow night.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/teams/richmond/dustin-martin-will-be-given-the-time-he-needs-to-visit-his-deported-father-in-new-zealand/news-story/d9d44bd623510b51a33911a10cc774ab
