Richmond could lead the charge for Bushfire relief with up to six players likely chosen
How many premiership Tigers will be chosen to play in the State of Origin clash? And will their duel Norm Smith Medallist don the big V? Plus, Tiger training pics from the Gold Coast.
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Richmond is determined to back the Bushfire Relief game by declaring its stars available with as many as six Tigers potentially suiting up against each other.
The Tigers’ seamless pre-season took a hit when Kamdyn McIntosh was carried off with an ankle injury, with further scans today to assess potential syndesmosis damage.
McIntosh, who missed both of the club’s VFL and AFL premierships last year has been cleared of a broken ankle but spent months on the sidelines with a similar syndesmosis injury in 2016.
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As the Tigers train on the Gold Coast, Tom Lynch has enjoyed a flawless pre-season that will be a mouthwatering entree to his second season at the Tigers.
He barely trained with the main group before a 63-goal season that included five goals in the preliminary final.
He would be one of the first picked by the Victorian side, with the league handing clubs an eight-player wish list to determine availability for both sides, coaches by Damien Hardwick and John Longmire.
The Victorian and All Star teams can have three players from each team take the field, but clubs will hope the league spread the load.
The Victorian team could have Dustin Martin, Tom Lynch or 2019 All Australians Dylan Grimes and Bachar Houli suiting up, while Jack Riewoldt and Shane Edwards would lead the queue of non-Victorians.
The Tigers haven’t yet made Martin officially available but it is expected he would play unless he was injured in the next month.
Football boss Neil Balme said yesterday clubs were aware of the need to make the concept work despite any reservations about injuries.
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“It’s just a matter of availability and how well they are going. We are very supportive of the concept of it, given we are letting our coach be one of the coaches,” he said.
“At first you might not be sure because your first response is, “What if someone gets injured?”.
“But you can do that climbing over the back fence and we also think the bigger picture of giving State of Origin a shot is a good thing.”
Balme said Lynch hadn’t missed a beat over summer after barely getting to the line for round 1 last year given a PCL reconstruction.
“We always thought he was going to be pretty good but he’s been much better than last year. We had to be pretty careful with the PCL but he has had a really good pre-season so he’s better than ever.”
Toby Nankervis (groin surgery) and Jack Graham (shoulder reconstruction) are both on track to play in Round 1.
GOLD COAST CAMP TRAINING PICS
Originally published as Richmond could lead the charge for Bushfire relief with up to six players likely chosen
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