Assistant coach, Backline and Defence, Justin Leppitsch, spoke to Richmond Media about the Round 7 win over North Melbourne in this week's edition of Coaches' Corner, presented by Hostplus.

Derek Eggmolesse-Smith's superb showing

"His running power and his ability to break the lines...he's a real smooth mover with a great left foot. When you have Bachar Houli out of the team and have a guy with similar traits like Derek come in, it was really good for us. I really hope he grabs his chance now and continues that on...He's a smart player and he's matured now in the system. It's great that we've got one of our own academy players coming through and he's a bit of a pioneer as far as that goes as well, so it's good on all fronts."

Noah Balta's impressive form

"We've given him some big jobs. Sydney was a weird game for him last week because he had multiple opponents and they were all small and medium-sized types...But for Noah to have Tom McDonald (against Melbourne) three weeks ago and do the job comfortably and then Ben Brown, which he did the same, it was a really good result for him. Sticking to the task week on week now will be his challenge...(and) he's fired up and passionate to do that."

Balta relishing Dylan Grimes as a mentor

"Dylan's really taken Noah under his wing. We review matches the three of us and go through the tapes together, so Dylan can sit in and talk with him. Dylan's great because he can give me a game day perspective on what's going on out there and what's being said...and then we can have a really good conversation. Noah is lucky to have guys like that around him."

David Astbury's availability

"It will just be whether his knee gets up...We'll have to wait and see. If not, we continue what we do and it just means Nathan Broad has to play a little taller, which is the same as what we did Grand Final day really, 'Broady' had to play on one of those talls and it seemed to work okay."