Richmond coach Damien Hardwick has labelled claims that the club has withheld details surrounding Daniel Connors and Dustin Martin as 'absolute rubbish'.
Connors and Martin missed training on Tuesday after taking sleeping medication on Monday night and, in Martin's case, mixing it with alcohol.
That was the last straw for the Tigers regarding Connors, who has agreed to leave the club, while Martin, who borrowed his tablet off another friend, has been banned from Richmond's next two games.
The severe nature of the punishments has raised some eyebrows but Hardwick has dismissed suggestions there is more to the story.
"I asked the blokes straight in the eye what happened and they gave us the truth, so that's absolute rubbish," Hardwick said.
The former Essendon and Port Adelaide defender argued that tough decisions like those made on Wednesday were needed if Richmond were to become a premiership contender in the future.
"This club for whatever reason has been in the wilderness for about 20 years and we've got to do everything better than everyone else to get back where we need to belong," Hardwick said.
"So we make no apologies for the hard stance."
Hardwick revealed on Thursday that he has yet to speak to Connors but admitted he was disappointed the 23-year-old had wasted his last chance after five tumultuous seasons with the Tigers.
"We've invested heavily in Dan and he's had a few indiscretions along the way, some severe indiscretions and we're disappointed," Hardwick said.
"Myself, a lot of other people, have put a hell of a lot of time into trying to get him back and playing some footy and it's not a great day."
Richmond take on Melbourne on Saturday and the Tigers will also be without Daniel Jackson (suspension), Jake King (knee) and Dylan Grimes (hamstring) from last week's line-up.
Hardwick revealed on Thursday that Luke McGuane, Tom Derickx and Matthew White all had a good chance to be selected, and added that Grimes might have to go to Germany to fix his persistent hamstring problem.
"We're probably going to look at sending him overseas just to see how that process goes," Hardwick said.
"The club's had success before with Mark Coughlan in that area."