Richmond stars Trent Cotchin, Dustin Martin, Jack Riewoldt, Alex Rance set to play in NAB Challenge

RICHMOND will welcome senior stars including Trent Cotchin and Dustin Martin for their first match of the pre-season but one big name is at least another week away.

RICHMOND is set to welcome senior stars Trent Cotchin, Dustin Martin and Jack Riewoldt for their first match of the pre-season against Hawthorn on Saturday.

But assistant coach Brendon Lade said on Thursday Brett Deledio was likely miss another match and make his first appearance in the third round of the NAB Challenge.

The Tigers rested a string of their senior players from their opening NAB Challenge match against Fremantle last week, with the young Tigers suffering a 60-point loss.

Lade confirmed Cotchin, Martin and Riewoldt would be back to take on the Hawks in Beaconsfield, while Alex Rance is also expected to be included.

“They’ll all play this week, ‘Lids’ is probably next week, but the rest of them will all play this week,’’ Lade said.

“We look forward to them getting out there, they’ll be blowing a bit early but they should be good by the end of the game.

“We’ll get a few players back this week which is great, a few of our senior players coming into the side.’’

“We’ll still have a few of our younger guys playing as well, we’ll have a mix of both, but to get some of our senior players back is really good for the whole team.’’

Ty Vickery joined his teammates on the training track at Punt Road this morning after his dramatic collapse and concussion last week against the Dockers.

He was initially jogging some laps and doing some light exercises along the boundary line, but is not yet doing any contact work.

Brett Deledio does some ball work at Richmond training on Thursday. Picture: David Crosling

Lade said Vickery had recovered well, but the Tigers would take every precaution with the tall forward.

“Ty has been in the club all week this week. He has been through some protocols that we go through as a club, the doctors sent him off for some tests, but he’s fine at the moment,’’ Lade said.

“He’ll have a week off this week and be ready to go the week after hopefully.

“It’s part of the game, it’s a contact sport and stuff like that happens. It was quite disturbing the vision, but Ty is fine now, that’s the main thing.’’

Lade said there was a suggestion Vickery may have suffered a knock during the warm-up.

“There is no vision of that to show if it did happen, or didn’t,’’ Lade said.

“We went through all the vision, so we knew it wasn’t in the game that he got hit in the head.

“Our doctors put a lot of work into these kind of areas and the head is a very important part of the body. So for us to take any kind of a risk whether it’s game day or the next game, we will do all the right stuff and get all the answers before we put him out there and let him train again and play again.’’

Lade said the Tigers wanted to see an improvement in their offensive and defensive game against the Hawks, while continuing to blood their young players.

“We want to play well offensively and defensively. We’ve got some things we didn’t do well last week as a team so we will try and improve them,’’ Lade said.

“The players that are coming in will help that, but the young guys that are playing there is an expectation that we get them up to speed and playing how we want to play.

Originally published as Richmond stars Trent Cotchin, Dustin Martin, Jack Riewoldt, Alex Rance set to play in NAB Challenge