‘No more questions’: Yze prickly; Moore out of Anzac Day clash

Earlier, Yze had said the club and Balta accepted the court’s punishment and would now set a plan for him, “understanding which games he won’t be allowed to play”. “To go through an appeal process would be almost giving him the license to get back in and [say that] footy was more relevant than the sanction,” Yze said. “He knew that he did wrong, and he was going to be punished. So to go through that for another six weeks, we just thought it was too hard, not only on him, but on our footy club and our playing group, so we accept the decision, and we move on.” Yze said the club had not expected a curfew, but they knew the defender was going to be sanctioned.

Loading “Dealing with that is just part of it,” he said. “Like I said, he’s really remorseful. We knew that he was going to be punished, and we went through that process yesterday, and now that’s one little element that we’ll have to play around with and deal with as a club. “But at the same time we have got to wrap our arms around him and help him through this.” Richmond banned Balta, 25, for four AFL games and two pre-season matches after it was revealed he had assaulted a man outside Mulwala Water Ski Club in the early hours of December 30 last year. But Yze defended Balta’s decision to not speak publicly about the court case.

Loading “He will speak in time,” the Tigers coach said. “It’s pretty tough to go through. There’s a fair few players that don’t like speaking in front of the media, and they’re not trained for that. “And going through what he went through yesterday, you’re obviously a little bit worried about what he could say. “He was he’s obviously disappointed, he’s flat, he’s emotional, so we’ve just got to protect him with that. He’ll speak when he when it’s his right time to speak and you will sense how remorseful he is.” Balta played his first game of the season against the Gold Coast last Saturday, and will be expected to line up for the Tigers again against Hawthorn in a day match at the MCG in round eight.

Yze said Richmond would bring in 195-centimetre youngster Campbell Gray, 21, to make his debut on Thursday night. Gray was taken at pick 16 in the 2024 mid-season rookie draft. Moore to miss Anzac Day clash Danny Russell

Collingwood have pulled Darcy Moore out of Friday’s Anzac Day match after the Magpies captain started experiencing vertigo from an ear injury. Moore copped an accidental knee to the left ear from teammate Jeremy Howe during a marking contest in Collingwood’s 52-point win over the Brisbane Lions last Thursday. The skipper was taken from the ground at the time with blood trickling from a split at the bottom of the ear.

The cut needed stitches, but Moore was cleared of concussion during the match and again during the week. Magpies coach Craig McRae announced during his press conference on Wednesday that Moore would not be playing against Essendon. Darcy Moore has been ruled out of the Anzac Day clash. Credit: Getty Images “Darcy’s got a bit of an inner-ear issue,” McRae said. “We are not sure exactly what it is. He has got a bit of vertigo symptoms at the moment. “We’ve had scans, he is probably off to see a specialist now to see what is going on there.”

McRae said Moore had not been able to train because of the lingering issues. “I just chatted to him prior to training, and he goes, ‘It just sort of comes on and goes away’,” the Collingwood coach said. “I haven’t experienced vertigo, but he is using that language. We don’t know the answers yet. He is going to go and have some tests, and we might be able to report something this afternoon.” The Collingwood match committee sit on Wednesday afternoon to name a replacement for the key defender. “Lucky enough we have got a few players we think we can bring in,” McRae said.

“Whether we go tall or we go smaller in our backline, we will work through that, but it leaves a hole.” Roos lash out at ‘coach bashing’ of Clarkson AAP North Melbourne have come out swinging in defence of Alastair Clarkson with football boss Todd Viney lashing “disrespectful” criticism and “coach bashing” of the Kangaroos mentor. North have lost their past four games by an average of almost 59 points and reached a season-low with an embarrassing 82-point defeat to Carlton on Good Friday.

Clarkson has come under fire, but Viney, who also worked with him at Hawthorn, scoffed at any suggestion the four-time premiership mentor had lost his edge. “I find it amusing, really. I find it probably disrespectful,” Viney said on SEN on Wednesday. Tough days: Alastair Clarkson is working to turn North Melbourne’s fortunes around. Credit: AFL Photos “This is not only to Clarko but this is something that’s pointed at senior coaches all the time. It’s almost like a sport ... There is a sport around putting undue pressure on senior coaches in my view.” Viney pointed out 2025 was the first season where Clarkson hadn’t also been dealing with the fallout from the Hawthorn racism saga.

“Not many clubs can really perform at their best when they’ve got such distractions going on,” Viney continued. “He’s had enormous distractions, unwarranted criticisms, judged unfairly – it’s taken an enormous toll on him over those two years. “Eventually we’re into this third year, two years and six games in. He’s a rejuvenated person, back to his old self, a lot of energy, seeing the game as well as he’s ever seen it.” Viney was adamant Clarkson was well supported and seeing the game “as well as he ever has” but the Kangaroos were in the early stages of building their game. “The criticism is really unwarranted,” he said. “I think it’s a bit of a sport, the coach-bashing thing. “It’s a tall poppy syndrome which is the Australian culture – we pick on the guys who have been successful and in time ultimately bring them down.”

Loading Ahead of Saturday’s away clash with Port Adelaide, Viney was adamant the Kangaroos were strong and aligned across the board and wouldn’t deviate from their plans. “A lot of things are going well so we won’t be fractured, we won’t fall into jumping at shadows with all the noise,” he said. “We understand the game gives us nothing and we need to deserve to win games. “No one’s going to give us anything and we don’t expect it, we expect to cop our right whack with performances like the weekend. “But we won’t hear that everything we’re doing is not right because there is a lot of positive things that are going right.”

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