Tigers to help ‘down’ Dusty visit dadHerald-Sun
15 April 2016RICHMOND star Dustin Martin can expect some attention from West Coast dynamo Elliot Yeo tonight as the Tiger attempts to bounce back from a quiet performance last weekend.
Martin, whose father Shane was deported to New Zealand over alleged links to a motorcycle group, could use next week’s eight-day break to visit his dad before the Round 5 clash against Melbourne.
Martin had 25 possessions in last weekend’s loss to the Crows but was “probably a little bit down”, according to coach Damien Hardwick.
Hardwick said the club will support 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.”
Dustin Martin will be allowed to visit his dad in New Zealand. Picture: Getty Images
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.
Yeo was given the job on Fremantle superstar Nat Fyfe in the Eagles’ win over the Dockers last weekend.
West Coast coach Adam Simpson commended Yeo for his role on Fyfe and said The Eagle’s strong-bodied midfielder could cross paths with Martin tonight.
“We let him (Yeo) go head to head with Fyfe and I was really happy with how he played the role out and … for the most part they had a reasonably good battle,” Simpson said.
“That’s (role on Martin) something we will look at with ‘Yeoy’.
“Not many people tag at all anymore, but we tend to match up some of our good inside players against the opposition’s good inside players and ‘Yeoy’ did it for us at the weekend.”
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
