Richmond coach Adem Yze has noted his side's condensed run of games as a likely hindrance to their Round 7 display against Melbourne, believing it was more of a factor than the well-documented Noah Balta situation from the past week.
Media attention was firmly pressed on Balta at Punt Road in the wake of the defender's court verdict, which has placed the premiership Tiger under a curfew - ruling him out of Thursday's game against the Demons.
While Yze stated his side missed the 25-year-old's presence against Melbourne, he saw the young Tigers contingent struggle with a short turnaround in matches, having played Gold Coast five days ago.
The Anzac Day Eve fixture was the third game in 11 days for the Tigers, with that run starting with a Gather Round clash against Fremantle under testing conditions in the Barossa Valley.
"It's a hard one, we've had three games in 11 days," Yze said post-game.ย
"We spoke about that after the game. I didn't want to use it as an excuse, but we do have young players that would never have dealt with that.
"Our small forwards are expected to put a lot of pressure on and energy, and we just looked a step off at times.
"To their credit in the last quarter - we've had a couple games this year where the third quarter hasn't been up to standard and the fourth quarter just got away from us - to put up a spirited fight in that last quarter... we owed it to our fans to finish the right way.
"We kicked four or five goals in the last quarter, we've done that a couple of times now. It was nice to finish off with a bit of spirit."
Questioned on whether the Balta matter was a distraction for the playing group, Yze didn't believe that was the case.
The Richmond coach confirmed the athletic swingman will be back for his second game of the year next week when the Tigers face Hawthorn on Sunday.
"I think it was more around the amount of games we played in 11 days, that was more of a distraction or tougher for our players to handle than Noah," Yze said of the build-up to Round 7.
"In a short week, the game was on us pretty quickly. I don't think [the Balta situation] was a distraction for our players.
"He's a great player. He played really well last week and we missed him. It'll be good to get him back in next week."
Richmond now sit at 2-5 ahead of a four-game run that will see them face Hawthorn, West Coast, North Melbourne and Essendon.
