Retired Richmond defender Alex Rance has not ruled out a return to AFL action.

The five-time All-Australian surprised onlookers when he announced his immediate retirement in December to focus on family and faith.

Rance, who remains on Richmond’s list, said he was happy with his decision but refused to close the door on a potential return.

“I love the game and I love what I’ve contributed and I am not going to completely rule out the fact I could come back,” Rance told Melbourne’s Triple R radio on Monday.

“But at this stage I am really happy with the life balance I have and I don’t regret any of my time spent at Richmond because it made me who I am. I’m proud of the effort that I put in there to achieve what we did.

“So it’s a constant thing that, it’s almost like – and this is a bad analogy but I’m going to use it anyway – being an alcoholic and constantly working in Dan Murphy’s.

“I know that if I go back to playing for Richmond I’m going to love it so much that it’s going to consume my life and my balance is going to go out again so I’m happy where I am at.”

Richmond senior club advisor Neil Balme said the Tigers would be “extremely happy” if Rance backflipped on his retirement decision, but that they respected the player’s decision.

“Now if he wants to play again we’d be extremely happy because he would almost certainly play with us, you would think – because he’s still quite attached to Richmond and he’s a beautiful player – but if he doesn’t, well that’s fine as well, we need to support that and accept it,” Balme told SEN radio.

“Everyone retires in the end. He’s perhaps gone a little bit early in terms of the talent that he’s got but we’re not driving him mad about it.

“He knows that we’d love to talk to him if he’s serious about talking about playing footy but he also knows that we totally respect the fact that he has made another choice in life that doesn’t let him play footy – and I think that’s also fair enough.”