RICHMOND football manager Neil Balme has defended the decision to sacrifice two draft picks to trade in Chris Yarran and says the club's "risk" should not be judged in hindsight.
Yarran retired effective immediately on Tuesday without playing a game for the Tigers and has returned to Western Australia to focus on his battle with mental health issues.
The 25-year-old, who Balme said would remain a listed player in 2017, could re-join his junior club Swan Districts in a move the Tigers would support.
Richmond last year traded pick No.31 and a future second-round pick to secure pick No.19 in the 2016 NAB AFL Draft. That was then on-traded to the Blues for Yarran.
Balme wasn't drawn when asked if the club would review that decision and said the club shouldn't be judged purely on the final outcome.
Yarran released by Tigers after ongoing mental health issues
"It's very easy to say 'this is the outcome, therefore it was a bad decision' … there's a lot of experts around," he told SEN radio.
"If we had hindsight we wouldn't do a lot of things and it would stop us from taking a risk on almost all the good things that have happened in the world.
"Is it worth helping these young men and taking a risk to help them play the game they love to play? Surely it is.
"Sometimes they don't work out, but we shouldn't just go back and say that was a bad decision, therefore you should never have done it."
You'll always be the biggest gun: Eddie's emotional farewell to Yarran
While Yarran has walked away from the remaining two years of his contract, a small payout has been negotiated.
Balme said as part of his release the club considered "the issues he's got (and how) we help him to get through them as much as we can".
Because Yarran will remain on the club's list, he would need to seek permission from the Tigers to pursue a position with Swan Districts next year.
"Certainly if he wanted to play for Swan Districts we would support that entirely and we wouldn't make it difficult for him at all," Balme said.
"If he is playing footy for Swans, we're barracking for him."
Yarran is the second Richmond player this year to retire because of mental health issues following Reece McKenzie's departure in June.
Former Brisbane Lion Jaden McGrath and ex-Magpie Jonathon Marsh also both retired young to return to their native states.
It was a reminder that clubs need to invest more in the emotional welfare of their players, according to former AFL star and mental health advocate Wayne Schwass.
"I've advocated for a long time that we've got great medical teams and we've got big medical teams, some of the best in the world, (with) two or three doctors, six physios (and) eight masseurs, but we might have (only) one part-time or full-time psychiatrist," Schwass told SEN.
"We need to reinvest some money into the welfare and the emotional intelligence of our playing group so that we can assist players dealing with injuries of the mind and not just injuries in a physical sense.
"These are young men thrust into a big environment, they're forced to grow up really quickly and it's not just about their physical preparation and performance and recovery."
AFL football operations boss Mark Evans said the AFL had worked with Schwass over the past two years to improve the "mental health literacy" of the industry.
