Rookie Troy Taylor charged with assault

Richmond's 4th round and 51st pick overall Troy Taylor has been charged with assault.

Richmond's Press Release is below.

"The Richmond Football Club can confirm that Troy Taylor has been charged with assault over an incident in Alice Springs on New Years Eve. He has been summonsed to appear in the Alice Springs Magistrates Court on February 18.

“We knew Troy had a number of issues he was dealing with when we drafted him,” Richmond CEO Brendon Gale said.

“The Richmond Football Club has a professional network of support helping Troy address his issues but we have also advised Troy that he needs to take personal responsibility for the decisions he makes,” Gale said.

Due to legal reasons there will be no further comment from the club until after Troy has been to court on February 18."

I have a real problem with this statement, Brendon Gale claims that the Tigers were aware of issues (robbing a service station for one) that Taylor was dealing with and this was long before the incident on New Years Eve, why did we take a chance on a guy who puts Richmond into the paper for all the wrong reasons.

Sure offering all the support and training to Taylor is the right thing to do but I would have to think we would be better served putting that time effort and money into other things. You have to ask yourself when will this guy learn his lesson?

The Herald Sun claim Taylor was among a group of teenagers that gate crashed the street party just after midnight. Barry Parkinson said the young men were letting off firecrackers. He claimed when he approached Taylor and asked him to leave the party, Taylor slapped him in the face.

Richmond is going into a new era with new coaching, new players and new leadership off field do we really need this?