Experienced Tigers and young cubs snub hubBy Riley Beveridge
afl.com.au
5 July 2020A GROUP of experienced Richmond players will not journey with the team to the Queensland hub, with the club's football boss Neil Balme revealing that a number have elected to stay home with their families.
The club is due to travel to Queensland to continue the season on Monday, though a number of Tigers have informed Balme and coach Damien Hardwick that they would like to remain in Victoria.
It comes as Balme also revealed that a select group of younger Richmond prospects also wouldn't travel to Queensland for the foreseeable future and would instead remain at home to further their development.
The reigning premiers are due to play Sydney at the Gabba next week, before facing North Melbourne at Metricon Stadium in round seven as Victorian teams are forced interstate to deal with a fixture heavily impacted by the global COVID-19 pandemic.
"There's a couple (of senior players) that won't go," Balme told radio station 3AW.
"We'll probably make a decision on some of our younger guys. There are a few guys who are unlikely to get a game … we'd almost be wasting their time going up.
"We think we'll leave them back here with some coaches so that they can get genuine one-on-one improvement. Later in the season, they'll be able to make a difference … rather than almost making the numbers up.
"When we're on the Gold Coast, we'll be focused on winning game after game after game and you won't be doing as much development of the players who aren't going to play. We'll do that down here with them.
"All of that is a bit of a challenge. Things probably will change as we go along. As we've seen over the last few weeks, what you've thought is going to happen tomorrow sometimes doesn't happen tomorrow because things do change with it.
"We need to be flexible with all of that."
https://www.afl.com.au/news/461857/experienced-tigers-and-young-cubs-snub-hub