Chaffey, Hall on rebound
Sportal
Richmond has received some good news from a disastrous weekend on the injury front with senior players Ray Hall and Mark Chaffey making successful returns in the VFL.
The pair is now is a good chance to return to the side for Saturday night's difficult trip to Perth to take on West Coast with the Tigers needing to find replacements for young pair Jay Schulz and Will Thursfield, who were both seriously injured during Friday night's loss to St Kilda.
Thursfield will miss the rest of the season after rupturing his left knee against the Saints while the Tigers are hoping Schulz will only miss a maximum of six weeks with the dislocated collarbone he sustained in a crunching tackle from Aaron Hamill.
Hall, an experienced big man capable of playing in defence, was Coburg's best player in their first round VFL loss to the Northern Bullants and looks a strong chance to return this week after having missed the past month with back spasms.
Chaffey, the Tigers' number one tagger last year, played his first full game after missing the pre-season with osteitis pubis and according to Tigers' football manager Paul Armstrong pulled up well.
Armstrong said the VFL debut of the club's second pick in last year's NAB draft - key forward Cleve Hughes was also encouraging.
"He has kicked 4.3 which is a good effort," Armstrong said.
"It wasn't like he had the ball 15 or 20 times but when he got it, he kicked well."
Armstrong said there was a chance Hughes could soon make his AFL debut but the Tigers will have some experienced replacements to choose from to replace Schulz and Thursfield with ruckmen Greg Stafford (calf) and Trent Knobel (cracked fibula) also expected to be available this week.
Stafford has been a late withdrawal in each of the first two matches but Armstrong said it was yet to be decided whether he and Knobel would resume in either the AFL or the VFL.
"And (Adam) Pattison, (David) Rodan and (Richard) Tambling, who were all dropped last week (for the St Kilda game) all went back to the VFL and made good contributions as well," Armstrong said.
Another player to impress in the VFL was ex Eagles defender Jeremy Humm, who is now on Richmond's rookie list and is the favourite to take Thursfield's spot on the senior list, while the Tigers' first draft pick from last year in Jarrad Oakley-Nicholls also made his debut in the VFL on the weekend and came through unscathed after missing much of the pre-season with groin soreness.
http://sportal.com.au/football.asp?i=news&id=80928
