RICHMOND coach Adem Yze has gone in to bat for Tim Taranto, declaring he couldn't care less how others rank the under-fire midfielder.
Taranto, 27, has faced criticism after he was limited to 17 disposals, including just one effective kick, in Richmond's thumping loss to Port Adelaide.
"Our players are gonna get criticism left, right and centre – so it's just how much you want to take in," Yze said on Wednesday.
"What we do know is Tim's an amazing player, a strong leader around our footy club and when he plays well, we're in most games.
"You saw that in round one, he got coaches' votes, he was a really important player to us and one of the main reasons why we win that game against Carlton.
"I think if you ask Carlton, they'd be saying that he's a pretty important player.
"So all the outside noise, we just try and block it out and help him with that. But that's always going to be there. But we know how much we love him and how good of a player he is."
Yze wouldn't buy into where Taranto sat in the AFL after former Port Adelaide midfielder Kane Cornes said he wasn't in its top 150 players.
"Well he's in the top one or two at our club. That's all I care about," Yze said.
"Rankings and things like that – we don't really care.
"He's a great teammate. He's tough, and he's a vice-captain for a reason, so he knows that we'll just wrap our arms around him and make sure we help him with blocking out that noise."
When asked if the scrutiny was unfair, Yze said: "Well I think most players are dealing with that scrutiny. Some of it is unfair.
"(West Coast young gun) Harley Reid's going through it at the moment. He's an amazing player, and there's just a lot of scrutiny, left, right and centre.
"That's just the landscape we live in."
Yze won't curb returning spearhead Tom Lynch's aggression after his one-match ban for a high bump on Carlton's Tom De Koning.
"It's a brutal game, and he plays his best footy when he's in that mode. And our players play and grow around him when he does that," Yze said ahead of Saturday's clash with St Kilda at Marvel Stadium.
"There's always that fine line and we've got to protect the head, and there's a technique issue in the way – he's a big man, so most times when he goes to bump, he's probably going to hit him in the head, unless it's Aaron Sandilands.
"We're never going to temper that. We expect that our big boys play big and play combative, and that's what he brings
"We don't want to lose him too often. He's just got to pick his time and his mark. But we don't want to take that aggression away from him."
No.7 draft pick Josh Smillie is poised for a VFL debut after a pre-season hamstring injury.
