Richmond head of football Neil Balme has dismissed a newspaper report that a cashed-up North Melbourne is set to lure Dustin Martin.
Today's Herald Sun backpage states that the Kangaroos board has endorsed a recruiting raid to land Martin and GWS star Josh Kelly.
But Balme took the story with a grain of salt.
“I’m very dismissive of it, yes," he told SEN's Hungry for Sport.
"I don’t take anything that’s written like that seriously at all because it’s not even a real story it’s just a heap of stuff that’s been said 20 times and we’re just saying it one more time.
"I’m not speaking about that at all because it’s nobody else’s business at all. Just let two boys play footy and stop talking about it."
Balme went on to say free agency provides newspapers with endless copy.
“Unfortunately the AFL have decided let’s do free agency so that we can give people like these papers something to write so that we can stay in it, it doesn’t have to be meaningful we just want to be in the paper," he said.
“From a club point of view it’s really difficult to deal with, it’s a pain in the butt to tell you the truth and it’s not that progressive and it’s not that helpful.
"We all understand players move and they should be allowed to."